This dissertation has been n , / l_ r . microfilmed* j exactly as received . j 69-15,960
SCHARFF, Arthur Bernard, 1911- THE OLD FRENCH CHANSONS DEL TOILE. [Portions of Text in German and Old French].
The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1969 Language and Literature, modern
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
@ Arthur Bernard Scharff ----
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE OLD FRENCH
CHANSONS DE TOILE
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State university
Arthur b £ Scharff, B.A., M.A.
The Ohio State university 1969
Approved by
Adviser Department of Romance Languages VITA
May 18, 1911 Born - Memphis, Tennessee
193 2 ...... B.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
193 3 ...... M.A., Columbia University, New York, New York
1933-1936 . . Teacher of English and French, Shelby County, Tennessee public schools
1936-1937 . . Student at the Sorbonne, Paris, France
1937-1939 . . Administrative assistant, Cit£ Universitaire de Paris, Paris, France
1939-1942 . . Budget Analyst, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D .C .
1942-1945 . . U.S. Army, Psychological Warfare Branch, Civilian Morale Division, North Africa, Italy, France
1946-1954 . . Foreign Service of the United States of America, Department of State, France, Italy, Spain, the Philippines and the Far East, administrative and i civilian morale work
1954-1963 . . Travel consultant, American Express Company, Thos. Cook & Sons, Ltd.
1963-1964 . . Instructor in French, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia
1964-1967 . . Instructor in French, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio
1967-1969 . . Instructor in French and Comparative Litera ture, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia
ii FIELDS OF STUDY
Major Field: French Literature
Studies in Medieval French Literature. Professor Eleanor Webster Bulatkin
Studies in Provencal Literature. Professor Eleanor Webster Bulatkin
Studies in Medieval and Modern Italian Literature. Professor Albert N. Mancini TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
VITA ------ii
TABLE OF THE CHANSONS DE TOILE------vi
INTRODUCTION------1
Chapter I. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CO R P U S ------8
A. The selection of the poems and the problem of the name of the genre B. A definition of the genre 1. Form a. Subject matter
II. THE ORIGIN OF THE CHANSON DE TOILE ------27
A. Provenience 1. Manuscripts 2. interpolation in romans d 1 aventure 3. Geographical origins 4. Dates of origin and purpose
III. ANALYSIS OF THE CHANSON DE TOILE ------95
A. Salient characteristics 1. Love 2. Woman 3. The milieu 4. Setting B. Plot structure C. Characters 1. Major a. Heroines b. Heroes c. Mothers d. Fathers e. Husbands and the theme of the '•rnal mar±ee"
iv Page
2. Minor characters 3. Names: origin and possible significance
IV. THE PLACE OP THE CHANSON DE TOILE IN LITERATURE------177
A. Relationship with the chanson de geste B. Relationship with the roman d 1aventure C. Relationship with other lyric genres D. Relationship with other literatures 1. The Portuguese cantigas d 1 amigo 2. The German Minnesinger 3. The English and Scotch ballads 4. Other ballads E. Possible folk origins of the chanson de toile P. The chanson de toile after the XIIIth century 1. The importance of the chanson de toile
APPENDIX - Translation of the chansons de toile------216
BIBLIOGRAPHY------266
v TABLE OF THE "CHANSONS DE TOILE"
Name of Number No. First Line Heroine according to :Saba : Bartsch:
Group A - Love Frustrated by Outside Influences
I. Siet soi bele Aye as piez sa male maistre Aye II 12 II. Fille et mere se sieftnt a l'orfrois Aude I 14 III. Quant vient en mai, que l1 on dit as Ions jors Erembor XI 1 IV. Bele Aiglentine, en roial chamberine Aiglentine IV 2 V. Bele Doette as fenestres se siet Doette X 3 VI. La bele Doe siet au vent Doe III 15
Group B - Studies in the Emotion of Love
VII. Bele Yolanz en ses chambres seoit Yolanz VIII 7 VIII. Bele Yolanz en chambre koie Yolanz XII 6 IX. An halte tour se siet belle Yzabel Yzabel XIII 4 X. En un vergier lez une fontenele Fille a VII 9 roi
Group C - Incomplete Fragments
XI. Siet soi belle Eurtaus, seule est enclose Euriaus VI 16 XII. Or viennent pasques les beles en avril Aigline V 13
Group D - A Special Case
XIII. Lou samedi a soir, fat la semainne Gaiete § XIV Oriour
Group E - Pieces Showing Later Influences
XIV. Oriolanz en haut solier Oriolanz IX 10 XV. Belle Amelot soule an chanbre feloit Amelot XV 8
Group F - Works by Audefroi le Batard
XVI. Au nouvels tans pascor ke florist 1' aube espine Argentine XVI 59 XVII. An chambre a or se siet la belle Beatris Beatris XVII 58 XVIII. Bele Ysabiaus, pucele bien aprise Ysabiaus XVIII 56 XIX. Bele Ydoine se siet desous la verde olive Ydoine XIX 57 XX. Bele Emmelos es pres, desouz l'arbroie Emmelot XX 60 INTRODUCTION
A study of the Old French chansons de toile poses one or two problems at the outset which must be considered be fore even the general direction of the study can be deter mined. With which of the general types of poetry are they to be classified? They are narrative in that they tell a story. They are also dramatic: characters address each other and reply; there is even change of scene and a small amount of staging. However, it is in their lyric quality that they are most outstanding and in which lies their greatest worth.
The feelings of one or more of the characters are always expressed. It is as lyrics that they assume great impor tance, and it is as lyrics that most anthologies include them. Gustave Lanson in his Histoire illustr^e de la litterature franpaise^ classifies them under "ancien lyrisme
franqais", even though he does not evince too high an opinion of them. B^dier & Hazard2 classify them under the "genres
•kparis: Hachette, 1923, p. 64 ff.
2Joseph B^dier and Paul Hazard, Histoire de la litterature franqaise, (Paris: Larousse, 1948), Vol. I.
1 2
lyriques", but at the very end of the genre since they con sider those that we have today as artificial reconstructions.
Carla Cremonesi's volume on the Lirica francese del Medio
O A EvoJ includes several of them. Lagarde & Michard place them under 11 les dAbuts du lyrisme", give one as an example
(No. XIII), and remark:
... lorsque le lyrisme trouve son expression litteraire (vers le milieu du Xlle si&cle) ... La forme la plus ancienne est la chanson de toile ou chanson d*histoire.
This opinion that the chansons de toile represent the oldest form of lyric in French literature is rather general ly held today. Robert Bossuat^ states that:
11 n'est pas douteux que les premieres manifesta tions de la po^sie populaire furent des chansons h. danser, chansons tr&s simples et toujours dramatiques, formees de couplets chantes par un soliste et d'un refrain qu'on reprenait en choeur. Ce type nous est conserv^ par les chansons d*histoire. while Alfred Schossig in Per Ursprung der altfranzdsischen
L y n..6 k says:
3 Varese: istituto Editoriale Cisalpmo, 1955.
4Andr£ Lagarde and Laurent Michard, Les grands auteurs franpais du programme, Vol. I, Le Moyen £ge, (Paris: Bordas, 1965), p. 181 ff.
^La po^sie lyrigue en France, aux Xlle et Xllle si&cles, l&re partie, (Paris: Centre de Documentation Universitaire, after 1948), Vol. I, p. 4.
^Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1957, p. 184. 3
Die chansons ^ toile, d'histoire, sind die aitesten Lieder der altfranzOsischer Lyrik.
The above statements are in contrast to an older opinion, not yet completely abandoned, that the lyric poetry of France came up from the South and was the creation of
Provenqal poets in their language. This idea was expressed by Sir Paul Harvey and J. E. HesseItine in The Oxford
Companion to French Literature:
The lyric genre in French poetry appears to have originated in Provence, where the material pros perity of the 11th and 12th centuries favored the growth of culture.^
However, it seems that the chansons de toile, even if they were not the oldest lyrics composed in the French language, are at least the oldest that remain to us today.
Their predecessors may have come from a number of sources, p including the Provencal. Gaston Paris, in an article0 which starts out as a review of another publication but ends up by giving us many of his own ideas on the origins of French lyric poetry, says:
Les chansons de danse, soit poitevines, soit limousines, ont p£n£tr£ dans la France du nord bien avant les productions des troubadours ...
^Oxford: University Press, 1959, p. 429.
®" La po£sie lyrique" in Melanges de literature franqaise du moyen £ge publics par Mario Roques, (Paris: Champion, 1912), p. 611. 4
and Aurelio Roncaglia, speaking of the refrains in the chansons de toile and in some other early French lyrics, notes that there must have been lyric poetry in France prior to that of the troubadours:
... di forma e intente poco diversa, cancellata del tempo, e preceduta a sua volta da una poesia popolareggiante, di cui resta qualche vestigio nei cosidetti refrains o ritornelli.®
It is from this poetry that the chansons de toile sprung and they are in the language of Northern France, not that of the troubadours.
It would appear to be accepted that they are the old est lyric expressions that remain today and that they are prior to the massive influence of the troubadours and their poetry. As such their worth is attested by Karl Bartsch in the Introduction to his AltfranzBsische Romanzen und
Pastourelien;
Bei dem bedauerlichen Verluste, der die romanische Volkslyrik des Mittelalters betroffen hat, sind die daher von hohem Werthe; sie bilden die hervorragendsten und bedeutendsten Gattungen der nordfranzBsischen Lyrik, neben denen die tlbringen farblos erscheinen und von der reichern sttd- franzdsischen tlberstrahlt werden.-*-®
^Aurelio Roncaglia^ 'bi una tradizione lirica pre- trovaresca in lingua volgare" in Cultura Neolatina 11 (1951), p. 216, note.
•*-°Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1967, p. V. 5
In this work it is proposed to study the entire group of the chansons de toile. With this in view it is necessary first to work out a definition of the genre with regard to both form and content and thus to establish a definite corpus. Since the poems are known under several different names, the implications of each of these names must be considered and a workable title chosen. Furthermore, as there is no arrangement of the poems dictated either by their authors--who in most cases are unknown— or by a stand ing tradition supported by logic, and since the individual pieces have no titles, an arrangement is worked out and numbers assigned for reference purposes. The origins and early uses of the songs are examined, particularly insofar as they throw light on contemporary or near contemporary attitudes toward or classification of the chansons de toile.
A thorough analysis of the individual chansons de toile, both from the standpoint of form and of mati&re, is then made. The basic subject matter which runs through all of them is brought out and the common elements of the back ground and setting established. The inner structure or plots of the different poems is studied, compared, and often contrasted. The character types which appear in the chansons de toile are brought out and the themes associated with these types noted. In this way some thematic relationship with other literature of the period is established. Possible isignificances in the names assigned to the persons in the poems is explored.
After analyzing the chansons de toile the problem of establishing their position in literature is taken up.
First their position with regard to the other forms in use in French literature current at the time of the production of the chansons de toile is discussed. Next their position with regard to the literature of other countries at the same general period is discussed. These studies help to bring out not only possible influences on the chansons de toile themselves but also their influence on other literatures’ and their correlation with these literatures. Possible links with folkloric sources are examined so that a more complete picture of the literary situation of the chansons de toile can be given. >
It is hoped that the study and analysis indicated
£l?ove will bring out the real significance of the chansons de toile in the body of Old French literature. It is not only that they are its oldest existing examples in the lyric vein and in the language of Northern France; it is also that they are relatively free of the influences, chiefly Provencal, 7
on later French lyricism which, even though they tended to enrich the quality of the lyric expression, did tend to estrange it from the earlier and more indigenous character
istics possessed by the narrative and epic work in the
language of that region. The chansons de toile constitute
a genre peculiar to Northern France. By thorough analysis
of this admittedly minor genre it is hoped to shed some new rays of light on the character of Old French literature before it was so deeply affected by outside influences and of a literature more popular and not so heroic and majestic
in character as the chansons de geste or the religious
literature remaining to us from this period of great creativity in Northern France. CHAPTER I
ESTABLISHMENT OP THE CORPUS
A. The Selection of the Poems and the Problem of the Name of the Genre
Not many of the Old French chansons de toile have come down to us. Just how many depends on what one considers a chanson de toile. On this matter scholars do not seem to be in agreement, although the divergence seems to be in the matter of individual poems rather than in the genre as a whole, and these divergences are not great. The poems were first brought to the attention of the modern world in
Paulin Paris's Romanc^ro Francois in 1833.^ However, he makes no attempt to separate them as a literary genre and classes them along with a number of other poems such as the aube and the songs of the mal marine as "romances", a term which he adopted, according to Henry Poulaille, 2 because he thought they resembled the Spanish romances. This
■^Paulin Paris, le Romancero Francois, (Paris, 1833).
^Henry Poulaille & R^gine Pernoud, Chansons de toile, (Paris: Jacques Rogers, 1946), p. 6.
8 9
classification was followed by most scholars for the next fifty years or so. Alfred Jeanroy in the introduction to his Origines de la poesie lyrique en France au Moyen Age credits Wilhelm Wackernagel with being the first critic to concern himself with the lyric poetry of Northern France in the Middle Ages, ^ and Wackernagel makes no mention of the chanson de toile as a genre separate from other "romances".
When Karl Bartsch first brought out his Romanzen und 5 Pastourellen in 1870 the general grouping under "Romanzen" was still observed. Two years later Gustav Grdber published his Romanzen und Pastourellen and divided Bartsch*s Romanzen into romances and sons d*amour. His definitions of these two genres are somewhat vague: the romances are epic narratives having as subjects amatory adventures in which the poet does not appear, whereas the sons d * amour are a transformation of the romances, due to development by court poets, in which the poet does appear and frequently takes 6 part. The chansons de toile are still classified as
3 Paris: Champion, 1965 (hereinafter referred to as Origines).
^AltfranzBsische Lieder und Leiche aus Hss. zu Bern und Neuberg, (Bcile, 1846).
^Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1967.
Zurich: Schabelitz*sche Buchhandlung, 1872, p. 9. 10
romances, although in one of them the poet makes a brief appearance. GrOber recognizes them as a special genre with in the larger classification, and uses the term chanson d 1istoire. By the time Jeanroy's Origines first appeared in 1899 the terms chanson de toile and chanson d 1histoire were being used in referring to the genre, but there was still some confusion with the term romance. On page 217 he says: "Nous voulons parler des 'romances1 ou 'chansons d'histoire. However, what follows is a study of the chansons de toile.
This confusion in terms is almost inconceivable— unless one remembers the state of neglect into which medieval poetry had fallen in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries— since both chanson de toile and chanson d'histoire had been used in referring to the genre as far back as the early thirteenth century. In the Guillaume de
Dole, which was composed between 1199 and 1201 according to n Gustave Servois, Guillaume's mother, who is embroidering a stole at the time she is asked to sing, replies that:
^Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole, Soci£t£ des Anciens Textes Franqais, (Paris: Pirmin Didot, 1893), Introduction, p. lxxxvi. 11
... les dames et les rolnes Soloient fere lor cortines Et chanter les chansons d'isfcoire.8
Gerbert de Montreuil in the Roman de la Violette, between
1227 and 1229,8 shows us a bourgeoise named Marote sitting in her father's room, also working on a stole of silk and gold and:
Si i fait ententeuement Mainte croisete et mainte estoile, Et dist ceste chanchon a toile,^0
These verses are included in all four manuscripts of the
Roman which have come down to us. In the Lai d'Aristote, composed probably in the second quarter of the thirteenth century we have:
Et plus bel le voist enchantant, vers la fenestre va chantant .j. vers d'une chanson de toile^--1-
In each of these cases there follows one of the songs in cluded here as a chanson de toile.
8Ibid.. p. 35, 1. 1148 ff.
^Le Roman de la Violette ou de Gerard de Nevers, Soci£t£ des Anciens Textes Frangais, (Paris: Champion, 1928), Introduction, p. lxxxiii.
lOxbid., p. 95, 1. 2299 ff.
^ Oeuvres de Henri d 1 Andeii-, tr. Alexandre H^ron (Rouen: Soci£t£ Rouennaise des Bibliophiles, Cagniard, 1880), p. 15, 1. 379 ff. 12
Thus we see that as early as the thirteenth century we had three variants of the name for these songs. The term romance does not appear to have been used to designate them at that time. It is unfortunate that Bartsch, and others, chose to include, these songs in so general a category and one that does not by any means always apply to them.
Bartsch*s book includes the entire corpus as it now stands and the texts are as authentic or more to the manuscripts than those in any other collection that I have found. Most of the published texts containing chansons de toile which have appeared since his book was publishedrcite it as a > source and the few variants from or additions to his texts are not of great importance.
Most modern scholars use either chanson de toile or chanson d*histoire and cite as their source one of the above passages from the thirteenth century romans noted. Guido
Saba, in the introduction to his L ie 11 Chansons de Toile" o
Chansons d*Histoire" ^ cites them and uses both terms through out his1 book. Edmond Faral in his article on t h e m ^ cites
^Modena: Society Tipografica Modenese, 1955, p. 6 ff.
^ " L e s chansons de toile ou chansons d'histoire" in Romania LXIX, 1946-47, p. 438. 13
these passages and employs both terms. Alfred Jeanroy in his Origines^4 refers to the same sources and uses both
terms.
Charles Bertram Lewis translates the term chanson de toile as "weaving song" and then proceeds to show why so 15 many of them cannot be called true weavxng songs. I
should go even farther than he does if I were using this term; in none of them is the heroine shown weaving. She may be sewing, she may be embroidering, she may even be spinning, or her work on the cloth may be unspecified, but it is al ways a work of embellishing the cloth, never of creating
it. Not one of the heroines is seated at a loom weaving.
I should therefore reject as completely inapplicable the term "weaving song".
I should also reject the English term "spinning song" for the chanson de toile. I have not encountered this term in any scholarly work, but have heard it applied to them rather loosely in discussions. It is true that in some of them the heroine is either seen spinning or the act of spinning is indicated, but there are definite connotations
14Ibid., p. 218 ff.
■^Charles b. Lewis, "The Origin of the Weaving Songs and the theme of the Girl at the Fountain", in PMLA XXXVI, p. 141-181. J 14
to the term "spinning song", especially in connection with
music, which do not apply to these pieces, and we should !
remember that they are songs. The "spinning song" is always
in a rapid, rather monotonous rhythm and is generally happy
in tone. A comparison with Goethe's "Gretchen am Spinnenradd1
or Wagner's Spinning Chorus from "The Flying Dutchman" will
show how different these are in feeling and meter from any
of the chansons de toile. This term does not seem to have been used in a scholarly way, and I see no justification
for attempting to start such a use.
We still have four terms sanctioned by good authorities,
even if they are centuries apart: chanson d'histoire,
chanson a toile, chanson de toile, and romance. The last
one, it has been noted above, applies to a good many things
other than the songs in question. It is inexact in its
connotations at best. Consequently, it will be avoided ex
cept in direct quotations where the author has used it or where its meaning is quite clear. Between chanson a toile
and chanson de toile there is so little difference that it would be superfluous and confusing to use both. Chanson a
toile. the less frequently found of the two, will be avoided
except under the circumstances noted above. 15
Thus we are left with chanson d*histoire and chanson de toile. These are found with about equal frequency in modern critical works. The general opinion held is that the former was used because the songs tell a story (histoire) whereas the latter was used because in the songs cloth (toile) working so frequently forms a part of the setting, or because the songs were considered fitting for women to sing while working on cloth. Edmond Faral^® states that the term
"histoire" has associations of ancient times, noble times as well as simply denoting a tale, whereas chanson de toile does not. He then calls attention to the fact that chanson d*histoire is used in the Guillaume de Dole by a noble lady
(the hero's mother) and the scene is fraught with dignity, whereas chanson a toile is used in the Roman de la Violette by a bourgeoise, and chanson de toile in the Lai d'Aristote by an evil seductress for immoral purposes. If his interpretation of the term "histoire" were to be accepted the term chanson d 1histoire could be applied to other genres which tell a story of ancient times and of nobility. The epic would qualify as a chanson d'histoire under these
•^Op. cit., p. 439. 16
conditions and it is certainly quite a different thing from the chanson de toile. But the term "histoire", either referring to a chain of events or of a tale relating these events, applies equally as well to the morning's neighbor hood gossip as it does to things noble and ancient. I should reject Faral's interpretation and consequently his preference for the term chanson d 1histoire as a result of it.
Guillaume's mother may well have had more reason than has been apparent up to this point for calling the song she was going to sing a chanson d'istoire. Du Cangeunder the word "historia" gives as its third definition: "pannus figuris intextus", and gives as an attestation the following citation from King James II of Aragon in 1301, not long after the chansons d*histoire had been composed and about a century after the term had been used in the Guillaume de Dole:
Qui (campsor de cetero securitatem sub forma non praesteterit supradicta, non audeat tenere in sua tabula, tapits, vel alios pannos seu Istoriam.
Thus the term "histoire" may have referred to a form of needle work and have been suggested to Guillaume's mother by the work she had in hand at the moment. The term did not
^Dominic Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitas (Graz: Akademisch Druck- u Verlagsanstalt, 1954), Vol. IV. 17
completely lose this usage. Henry Havard*s Dictionnaire de
1'ameublement et de la decoration depuis le Xllle si&cle k nos jours, under "histoire" gives:
Terme de peinture ... mais c'est surtout aux tapisseries de haute lice que ce mot se trouve souvent accol£, ou encore ^ ces admirables tentures executees en broderie, et qui, comme nombre de personnages et complication de scenes, ne le cadent en rien aux tapisseries les plus mouvementees.
Havard then goes on to cite the word used in the works of
Froissart and in L'Etat des meubles de Pau transports &
Paris par 1 1ordre de Henri IV in 1602-03:
Une histoire en quarre de Mars, Venus et Cupido ... Deux petites histoires de toile d*argent, de Venus et Cupido.
The term "histoire", aside from the basic meaning of "history or "story", was apparently used to refer to a tapestry or a piece of embroidery telling a story in needlework. Such a work is the well-known Tapestry of Bayeux (actually an applique), done by Queen Mathilda and her ladies and pictur ing the Conquest by William of Normandy. Ecclesiastical garments were, and often still are, embellished in this way.
Guillaume's mother was working on a stole for a poor church at. the... time, she was. requested .to sing. The terms chanson
- - , . - r. . _ ...
•*"8Paris: Librairies-Imprimeurs R^unies, 1894, Vol. II. 18
de toile will be used unless the context demands otherwise.
In this we will be following Jeanroy in his Origines and many other critics.
B. The Definition of the Genre
1. Form. Just what is a chanson de toile then?
Gustave Lanson in his Histoire illustree de la literature frangaise first groups them with the chansons & danser and describes the whole group in a rather negative way as speak ing of nothing but love:
Mais la chanson n*est pas devenue une ode: ni le sentiment de la nature et la communication sympathique avec la vie universelle, ni la profonde et fr^missante intuition des conditions eternelies de l'humaine souffrance, ni enfin 1*intime intensity . de la passion et 1*absorption de tout l*£tre en une affection, ne venait £largir le couplet de danse en strophe lyrique. Cela restait gr£le, leger et jolie ...^-9
He continues, classifying them with the romances:
C*£taient des romances aussi qui consolaient les femmes assises cl filer dans l*4crasant ennui des jours monotones ... and gives us the settings and personnel of several of the chansons de toile.
Voilcl de quoi les chansons de toile entretenaient nos rudes aleules: voilcl ce qui enfievrait leurs
190p. cit., p. 64. 19
, imaginations oublieuses de la froide et pauvre r£alit£. Ces vieilles romances anonymes, con- temporaines des anciennes chansons de geste, nous offrent le m£me sentiment violent, grossier sans nuances ni raffinement.
We shall see if we continue to agree with his feelings on
the sentiment of the chansons de toile. 20 Jeanroy takes the chansons de tolie rather lightly
at first:
Nous avons ici probablement des chansons com pose es "pour £tre chanties dans les gyn£c£es par les femmes qui y travaillaient; il est h. remarquer qu'un grand nombre de chansons de toile debutent en nous montrant une ou plusieurs femmee occupees el coudre ou 5. broder."21
However, he-recognizes their importance in painting the
relations between men and women before the end of the
twelfth century as the poets saw them— which was not
necessarily the way they really were. Also, we must keep in mind that Jeanroy is making a study of refrains and although he makes a good analysis of the mati^re of the chansons de
toile they are chiefly interesting to him for the refrains which they include.
The form of the chan&on de toile admits of some varia- i tion but is sufficiently definite to be recognizable and
20OP . cit., p. 225 f. 21 Quoted by Gaston Paris in "Compte-rendu des •Oeuvres de Henri d*Andeli,H in Romania XI, p. 144. 20
characteristic. It consists of stanzas, not necessarily of
the same length, but with the same assonance or rhyme through
out. Each stanza is independent of the others as to asson
ance or rhyme in most cases, and each is followed by a re
frain which is independent of the stanzas in rhyme or
assonance, 99 ^ -ahd generally in meter and length also. The
verse is most often the decasyllable, although there is
some variation. Robert Bossuat gives a rather succinct
definition of the form of the chanson de toile in La. poesie
lvriaue en France aux Xlle et Xllle silcles:23
Pour la forme, les chansons d'histoire se composent de quelques strophes de quatre ci. huit vers octosylla- biques ou decasyllabiques unis par une m£me assonance et suivis d*un court refrain.
In some of the later ones the alexandrine is used. Whatever
verse length is used, it is employed throughout, except for
the refrain, and an occasional variation in the last line
of the strophe. These variations as well as those in the
length of the regular stanza line are of sufficient signi
ficance that it is thought best to reserve discussion of i them until later. It should also be noted that the form of
the chanson de toile makes it clear that they were intended
22I am indebted to Faral, op. cit., p. 439 for this definition. 23 Op. ext., p. 4.
i 2l
to be sung. In fact, in five of them the musical notation O A has been included in the manuscript. ^
The subject matter or matti&re of the chanson de toile,
is also characteristic and distinguishing. The subject
is always love, and the emphasis is always on the woman*s
point of view. This fact is significant enough to bear
repetition. It is the one thing that most strikingly dis
tinguishes the chanson de toile from most other genres,
particularly from its contemporary, the chanson de geste.
The setting is always feudal and aristocratic; the heroines
are highborn ladies, generally the daughters of kings and
emperors, at least of counts. The manners reflected are
those of the upper classes of feudal society. In the setting
castles and gardens predominate and tournaments are often in
the background. If there is a "vilain" he is evil and re
ceives no sympathy. The attitude is not courtly; the object
of love is for the two lovers to get together physically and
there is no discussion of the "amor de lonh". Furthermore,
there is no adoration of the lady; she is a subjected being
in the manner in which feudal society prescribed and her
1 struggle is to overcome the obstacles and reach her lover.
^ C f . Jean Beck, La musique des troubadours (Paris: Henri Laurens, 1928) and Theodore Garold, La musique au moyen £ge (Paris: Champion, 1932). 22
There is always a narrative element and' the object of the
narration is the reunion with the lover, whether this re
union takes place or not. A fuller analysis of the mati^re
of the chansons de toile will be attempted later, but the
above remarks will give enough of the idea to permit defin
ing the chanson de toile and distinguishing the genre from
other lyrics of the period in the cases where the author,
or the author of the poem in which it is included has not
done this for us.
Twenty songs are included in this study. Each of them
meets the requirements of the above definition. In estab
lishing these twenty as the corpus we have found present-
! day scholars to be fairly well in agreement. They are the
ones chosen by Guide Saba in his Le 11 Chansons de Toile" o 25 11 Chansons d rHistoxre" . They are also the ones listed by
Edmond Faral in his article Les chansons de toile ou chansons 26 d'histoire. They are also the ones listed by Raymond Joly 27 in his Les chansons d»histoire. All of them are included 28 in Bartsch*s Romanzen und Pastourellen, although, as has t ------—
250p. cit.
260p. cit. 27 Romanistisches Jahrbuch XII (1961), p. 51-66.
280p. cit. 2 3
been noted, he designates nothing as a chanson de toile.
Other works treating them, such as Jeanroy1s Oriqines, which does not attempt to give an exhaustive listing or to estab lish a corpus, use one or more of those included here. The only possible exception to this corpus of which I am aware would be found in Charles Bertram Lewis* article, ^ 9 where he calls them "weaving songs" and then proceeds to eliminate most of them. Even Lewis starts the elimination with the twenty included here. No work which has come to my attention calls any poem not in this corpus a chanson de toile or any of the other designations applied to them.
If scholars have been fairly well in agreement as to the corpus, they have certainly not been when it comes to the order of arranging them. Since there seems to be no indication that these songs were composed with any particul ar reference to each other no grouping based on the inten tions of the various authors can be made. Since the dating of the chansons de toile is subject to many considerations and can at best only be approximate, an arrangement in chronological order is not possible. Fifteen of the twenty pieces are by unknown authors and the other five (a sixth is
290p. cit. 2.4
sometimes attributed thus) are by the same author, Audefroi
le Bcbtard. So, grouping by authors is not particularly
helpful, although those by Audefroi, which are conceded to be later than the others, are generally placed at the end.
Faral, 30 who does not give the text of the poems, groups
them according to the manuscripts in which they are found.
Since thirteen of the twenty are found in diverse manus
cript?, some in as many as four different ones, this arrange
ment breaks down rather quickly. Raymond Joly3^ groups
them according to the subjects treated and the manner of
treatment. He has not given the texts either. Guido Saba, who prepared the first critical edition dedicated exclusively
32 to the chansons de toile, groups them according to manus
cript?, citing Faral*s articles as his reference but not
following Faral*s grouping exactly. The inconveniences of
a grouping by manuscripts have been mentioned already. An
arrangement based largely on Raymond Joly*s grouping, but
varied occasionally for reasons which will become afpparent
as the analysis of the mati&re proceeds, has been used
300p. cit.
310p. cit.
320p. cit. 25
herein. In any case, an attempt has been made to group them logically by subject matter tather than by date or provenience.
These poems were not titled by their authors, therefore it is generally more useful to refer to them by number.
Since different arrangements and different groupings are in use, the question of numbering becomes complicated, dif ferent numbers having been used by different scholars. It becomes even more complicated when we take into account a number of anthologies which do not attempt to give all of the poems but do give a number of them and use their own numbering system. . An example is Madame Carla Cremonesi's
Lirica francese del medio evo3 3 which has excellent text and notes and a section devoted exclusively to the chanson de toile, but gives only seven of them and numbers them I through VII. To attempt to clear up some of the confusion, 34 a table has been placed at the beginning of this study giving the numbering which will be followed, the first line of the song, and the numbers used by Saba and Bartsch. The name of the heroine has been included since the heroine is by far the most important thing in each of them and the pieces
330P . cit.
34see page vi. 26
are sometimes referred to by her name. As a designation, however, the names of the heroines are not practical due to the fact that two of them have heroines named Yolanz, the heroine of one is never named, and one has two heroines, the sisters Gaiete and Oriour. CHAPTER II
THE ORIGIN OF THE CHANSON DE TOILE
A. Provenience
1. Manuscripts. It has been noted that some of the
chansons de toile have come down to us by means of their more or less incidental inclusion in other poeims. In the
Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole, edited by Gustave
Servdi^,1 are included Nos. I, II, IV, VI and XII. These
are not found in other manuscripts. In the Roman de la
Violette ou de Gerard de Nevers^ is found No. XI. Although this song is obviously only a fragment, the full text or anything that can be identified as a part of it is not found O in any other manuscript. In the Lai d^Aristote is found the
first stanza of No. X. This stanza is also found in three other manuscripts preserved in the Biblioth^que Nationale in Paris.^ In another manuscript, also preserved in the
•*-Soci£t£ des Anciens Textes Franqais, op. cit. A Edited by D. L. Buffurn, Soci£t£ des Anciens Textes Franqais, op. cit.
^Oeuvres de Henri d'Andeli, tr. Alexander H^ron, op. cit.
^Nos. 837, 1593 and 19152 of the fonds frangais.
27* 28
Bibliothlque Nationale and generally known as the Chansonnier
Franqais de Saint-Germain-des-Pr e s ^ from the abbey where it was formerly kept, the full text is found. This manuscript also contains Nos. Ill, V, VII, VIII, X, XIV, and XVII written in the hand of the first copyist, and Nos. IX, XV, and XVIII written in the hand of the third copyist. In all, eleven of the twenty chansons de toile are contained in this one manuscript. No. XVI is also found in another manus- 6 w cript in the Biblioth&que Nationale as well as in a manus- 7 cript in the Stand- und universitat Bibliothek in Berne.
This manuscript also contains Nos. XVII and XVIII— one of which is in the previously mentioned Chansonnier Franqais de Saint-Germain-des-Pr^s (No. XVII). Both of these are again found in two other manuscripts in the Biblioth&que O Nationale, and No. XIX is found in them also, and No. XX g in one of them. Their appearance in more than one manus cript not only confuses the problem of classifying them according to the means by which they have been transmitted
^No. 20050 of the fonds franqais.
No. 844 of the fonds franqais.
7No. 389. ®Nos. 844 and 12615 of the fonds franqais.
9Nq . 844. ■ 29
to us and, as we shall see, the question of dating theqi,. but also indicates that they enjoyed a certain amount of popularity in their day.’*’0
The Chansonnier Franqais de Saint-Germain-des-Pr&s, from which the largest number of these songs is drawn, is in three different handwritings, all with notable Lorraine 11 characteristics. This, of course, does not indicate that the songs originated in Lorraine. The one known author of chansons de toile, some of whose works are in this manus cript, was from the Artois. It may mean that the manuscript was copied, from one or a number of sources, in Lorraine.
It was, in fact, presented to the abbey of Saint-Germain- des-Pres by the Bishop of Metz in 1732. However, the hand should not be taken as conclusive proof of even the geograph ical origin of the manuscript itself, much less of the songs it contains. The fact that the songs also appear in various manuscripts of different origins makes it difficult
^■®I am indebted to Guido Saba, op. cit., for most of the information on the manuscript locations of these songs. 1*1 xAlfred Jeanroy, Bibliographie sommaire des chansomfers franqais du moyen £ge, (Paris: Champion, 1918). Further de tails of the manuscripts can be found in Gaston Rayna.ud, Bibliographie des chansonniers des Xllle et XIVe si&cles, 2 vols., (Paris: Vieweg, 1884) of which Jeanroy's work is an extension. 3D
to establish just where they were composed. The manuscripts
with distinct traits either of handwriting or of language
are those of Lorraine or the Artois.
2. Interpolation in romans d 1aventure. The single
manuscript of the Guillaume de Dole, in which five of the
songs are found is in the Vatican Library, manuscript No.
754 in the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden. It
came from France, however, where it seems to have been stolen
from the library of the President Fauchet, who quotes from
it in works he wrdte in the late sixteenth century. It
turned up a little later in the library of a Monsieur Paul
Petaud and was sold by his sons to Queen Christina in 1659.
She carried it to Rome with her and thence it went to the
Vatican. Guillaume de Dole follows the Roman de la Charette
and the Chevalier au Lion, both works of Chretien de Troyes,
in the manuscript. The songs interpolated in the Guillaume
de Dole aroused the interest of Paulin Paris and in 1849
the Minist&re de l ’Instruction sent two young scholars to
Rome to copy them from the manuscript. One of them was
Ernest Renan. The author of the Guillaume de Dole seems to have been from the northeastern part of France, probably from 3 1
Champagne, according to linguistic evidence presented by 12 Gustave Servois.
The Roman de la Violette ou de Gerard de Nevers^ in which No. XI appears is by Gerbert de Montreuil-sur-Mer
and comes to us in four manuscripts, two of them in the
Biblioth&que Nationale, ^ one in the Morgan Library in New
York, and one in Leningrad. The latter was stolen from the
Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pr^s by an attach^ of the Russian
Embassy in Paris during the disruptions caused by the French
Revolution. All of these manuscripts show traits of the
dialect of Picardy, the native land of the poet. There is
reason to believe that one of the manuscripts in the
Biblioth^que Nationale may be a faithful rendering of the 15 poet's original language. Whereas Guillaume de Dole was
the oldest roman d 'aventure to introduce songs that were not of the author's own invention, the Roman de la Violette was the first to imitate this practice and follows the Guillaume I very faithfully in doing so. There are forty songs in all,
including a passage from an epic. Only one stanza of each
■L2op. cit., Introduction.
^Douglas Labaree Buffum, Soci£t£ des Anciens Textes Frangais, op. cit.
^Nos. 1533 and 1374 of the fonds franqais.
15Buffum, op. cit., introduction, p. vii. 32
is given. This is unfortunate, since the rest of the chanson de toile included has not been found elsewhere. The
Roman de la Violette, as well as the Guillaume de Dole, re presents the literary taste of the most aristocratic and fashionable society in Prance at the moment when medieval civilization was at its apogee. Consequently, we may assume that the songs and the refrains used in them were the very 16 height of fashion at the time.
The Lai d'Aristote, in which the first stanza of NO. X is found, represents a different epoch in medieval literature.
The stanza of the chanson de toile included in it is found in three manuscripts in the Bibliotheque Nationaleand two of them contain the whole Lai. The entire chanson is found in the manuscript of the Chansonnier Franqais de
Saint-Germain-des-Pr^s. T h e Lai d'Aristote is by Henri d'Andeli (the locality is now known as Les Andelys), a Norman trouv&re of the Xlllth century. It probably should not be called a lai at all in the strictest sense of the world.
It certainly contains none of the "mati&re de Bretagne",
16Ibid., p. xcl.
1 7 Nos. 837, 1593 and 19152 of the fonds franqais.
^®No. 20050 of the fonds franqais. 3d
but is based rather on an Oriental legend which must have been current in France at the time. We find pictorial re presentations of its principal scene (the mistress of Alexander riding piggy-back on Aristotle) in several churches of the time or a little earlier. Among them are Saint-Pierre in
Caen, Saint-Jean in Lyon, and One of the choir stalls in the
Cathedral at Rouen. It is also found on articles destined for private or domestic use. However, the subject is un treated elsewhere in French literature until nearly a cen tury later. On the whole, the work manifests a somewhat later phase of medieval thinking. It is satirical and piquant
(Daudet made an op£ra-comique of it in the nineteenth century), and indicates the beginnings of a decline from the highly chivalric romance content of the Guillaume de Dole and the
Roman<>de la Violette. It is sometimes called a fabliau.
Also, the use of the interpolated songs, including the chanson de toile, has changed. They are considered lascivi ous and are used as one of the weans of seducing the old philosopher. The chanson de toile is the one that finally turns the trick......
l^cf. Alexandre Huron's Introduction to the Oeuvres de Henri d'Andeli, op. cit. I 34
The use and the milieu of origin of the other manus cripts in which the chansons de toile are found, including the Chansonnier Franqais de Saint-Germain-des-Pr^s, can only be surmised. The opinion that they were the texts, the
scripts or "sides", of a jongleur has been advanced and seems probable.
3. Geographical origins. In summary, from the evidence of the manuscripts it can be deduced that the chansons de toile originated in northeastern France, but no further precisions can be made. Lorraine, Picardy,
Normandy, arid the Artois are possibilities, but nothing leads us very certainly to any one of these regions. At any rate, the songs seem to have been popular in these regions and have turned up in very few manuscripts which have come down to us from other areas.
4. Dates of origin and purpose. The dating of the chansons de toile is an even more thorny problem. Five of them are by Audefroi le BStard and can be dated with re lative precision by the few facts that we know about this poet. However, they are clearly imitations of a well established genre, so we will leave them until the last and consider first those whose authors are not known. 36
It is rather certain that chansons de toile were com posed before the beginning of the thirteenth century. One is quoted in the Guillaume de Dole which was written between
1199 and 1201, according to Gustave Servois, and although
Rita Lejeune advances the work a few years, the date she 20 proposes is still prior to 1213. - The chansons are des cribed as old songs even at that time; in fact, the impli cation is that the genre was already a bit outmoded. But how much older than the Guillaume are they? On this matter scholars have spread a lot of ink but when it has all been read they are fairly well in agreement and end up by assigning them to the twelfth century with one holdout for the end of the eleventh. We shall opt for a period near the middle of the twelfth century and present some of the argu ments that tend to substantiate this choice--keeping in mind that whatever date is chosen it is subject to question, within the limits that can be assigned. The Encyclop^die de la Plj^iade^l calls the chansons the oldest of the lyric genres in the French language, but does not hazard a date.
^®These dates are quoted by Faral, op. cit., p. 436. See also Servois, op. cit., introduction.
^^Histoire des Literatures, Paris, 1958, Vol. Ill, p. 34. i 35
Karl Voretsch22 maintains that they are 11 the oldest type of popular songs in Old French Literature" but sees no need to restrict the origin of French lyric poetry to a narrow space of time. Alfred Schossig says:
Die chanson S. toile, d*histoire, sind die aitesten Lieder der altfranzdsischn Lyrik. So, wie sie Uberliefert sind, stammen sie aus dem Anfang des 13. Jhs. Sie sind aber nicht erst in dieser Zeit entstanden, sondern frUher. Jeanroy meint in der I. Halfte des 12. Jhs. Mann kann sie noch frUher datieren.23
The work of Jeanroy to which he refers is the Oriqines and his statement there i s :
... quelques unes des romances [sic ] appartiennent K la premi&re moiti£ du Xlle si&cle, et les plus r^centes semblent £tre de la fin de ce m£me si&cley les traits archalques de la langue et de la versi fication le prouvent suffisament.24
The linguistic features and peculiarities of versifi cation to which Jeanroy refers have caused much discussion.
He cites the fact that in No. Ill there seems to be no nasal o. The assonance (he calls it a rhyme) in o used in most of the poem is: jors:cort:front:Arembor:mont. Clearly nasalization seems not to be present. Assonances of this
22Introduction to the Study of old French Literature. tr. by F. M. DuMont, G. E. Stechert & Co., New York, 1931, p. 153.
230p. cit., p. 184.
240p. cit., p. 217. 37
type were lare after the beginning of the twelfth century, and assonances between o-nasal and o are already rare even in the oxford Roland. Similarly, in No. V. assonances between e^ and e^-nasal are frequent: sietstienty tornier: ressovient. This assonance is extremely rare even in the
Raoul de Cambrai at the end of the twelfth century. In the songs which have different rhymes for each stanza, the fact that masculine rhymes predominate would suggest antiquity.
However, in No. IV the rhyme: Henri slit would indicate that the final consonant of "lit" was already silent, a develop ment of the last half of the twelfth century. The songs are thus not all of the same age. The more recent, accord ing to Jeanroy, are No. XIII (based on predominance of feminine and exact), No. X (all rhymes feminine and exact), and in No. XV, which has the lyric cesura rather than the epic, the rhymes are almost all exact (the refrain was pro bably borrowed from an older poem, which would account for the rhyme Garin:ami). In fact, Jeanroy attributes this piece to Audefroi also, basing his argument not only on the rhyme but also on the fact that the piece follows one of Audefroi's in the manuscript.
The chansons de toile by Audefroi le B&tard can be dated more precisely than the anonymous ones and can even be located a little more exactly. Jeanroy places them in the 36
25 Artois before the middle of the thirteenth century. Other
songs by Audefroi are found in the same manuscripts as some of the anonymous chansons de toile. One of these songs is
interpolated in the Roman de la Violette, so it must have been written before 1229, the latest date assigned to that 26 Roman. However, not all of Audefroi*s chansons de toile are included in these manuscripts and it would be safe to assume that they were not all composed at the same time. 27 Grente's Dictionnaire des lettres franpaises places his work in the first third of the thirteenth century, based
largely on the records of his protectors, Jean de Nesle and 28 Michel de Harnes.
One group of critics takes exception to classifying the chansons de toile as works of great antiquity. This view was most prominently exposed by Edmond Faral in an 2 9 article in Romania in 1947. He admits all the signs of
antiquity in the versification and assonance, even the air of antiquity: "II se d^gage de nos chansons comme un parfum
250 p. cit., p. 2 2 2 . ^Buffum, op. cit., Introduction, p. lxxiii.
^Arth&me payard, Paris, 1964, "Le Moyen A§e", p. 87.
28gee Holger Petersen-Dyggve, Trouv&res et protecteurs des trouv^res dans les cours seigneurales de France, Suomalien Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki, 1942, who places it from 1215 to 1220, p. 225.
2 ®0 p. cit., p. 433-462. a®
«3 A d 1 4 p o p i e ." He is, however, disturbed by the fact that he notes within the same poem signs of antiquity and signs of later times. Some have assonance and rhyme in the same poem.
Some with the most signs of antiquity in the form show manners and attitudes that indicate a later period. He cites the brazenness of Yolanz (No. VII) and of Oriolant
(No. XIV), as well as the fact that the latter speaks of
"felons et losengers", words which became current literary language with the influence of Provencal poetry in the thirteenth century. He is also alarmed by the fact that
Doon (No. V) has gone off to a tournament rather than to a war, and by the theme of the "mal marine" which appears in
Nos. VIII and IX. Even No. XIII he finds disturbing, this time because of the coupe of the decasyllable (6 ?fr 4 ) . But above all Aigline's train dragging two ells on the ground in No. XII is too much for him: they simply were not wear ing trains that way before the thirteenth century, he says.
In No. Ill he recognizes W hole;lines/ taken from the repertoire of the chansons de qeste, but is alarmed by line 27:
Blond ot le poil, menu recercele:
300p. cit., p. 441. 40
which is applied to Raynaut here, whereas in the Girart de
Vienne it is applied to a woman. Faral finds in this evi dence of bad copying. The term "Franc de France", which in
Charlemagne*s time had a particular significance; i.e., the inhabitants of present-day north central and northeastern
France as opposed to the Franks in present-day Gernany, no longer would be understood in the twelfth century. And why were they coming back in the month of May? The May assemblies had been customary at the time of the empire of the Franks.
There are also grammatical constructions resembling the ancient forms: omission of the article before both the determinant and the determined in "repairent de roi cort", constructions not attested in documents of the time of the
Chanson de Roland. But when he cones to the last line (35):
Lors recommencent lor premieres amors, he says the plural reveals the "modern" writer. It would have to be the plural "premieres" which bothers him because
"amors" is found as a singular as well as a plural form and
"recommencent" is actually written "recommence" in the manuscript.
What conclusions does he draw from all these inquietudes?
He says that all the chansons de toile were composed at a later date— in the first half of the thirteenth century probably, since the latest date assigned to the Guillaume 31 de Dole is 1213, that of Rxta Lejeune, and the date of the
Chansonnier Franqais de Saint-Germain-des-Pres is around
1250. He maintains that the archaisms, the antique setting, the general aura of olden times, were all introduced at great pains by the poet "artificiellement, artificieusement".
Another question is taken up in the second part of his article, a question which has been avoided so far but one which must be faced. Were these really women's songs,
"Chansons de femme"? Of course, in using these terms we must think on two different planes: songs composed by women and songs composed for women.
The first idea can be disposed of rather easily. In the form in which we have the chansons de toile today they are obviously the work of poets, and of poets who demon strated skill in their craft. Even aside from the subject matter, the handling of the rhymes and the assonances, the building of the strophes and the distribution of the coupes are all performed with a dexertty that reveals professional training. Women poets were almost unknown in Northern
3^-Rita Lejeune-Delhousse, L'Oeuvre de Jean Renart (Li«?ge: BibliothSque de la FacultedePhilosophie et Lettres de l'universit^ de Li^ge, Fascicule LXI, 1935). 142
France during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.
Jongleresses there were, but there is no record of any ;
jongleresse who wrote her own poetry. So, although it cannot
be proved that the chansons de toile were not composed by women, there is very little reason to think that they were.
There is even evidence in the subject matter that would indi
cate that they were not, as we shall see when we analyze the
mati^re. As a matter of fact, there is not one shred of
evidence as to who did compose them--except, 6 f course, the
ones attributed to Audefroi le Bcfctard in the manuscripts,
and he was obviously not a woman. Scholars seem quite
content to let them rest anonymous.
The question of whether they were composed for women
and sung by them, presumably while performing their domestic chores as Guillaume's mother recommends, is a more delicate on one. Here Faral acquits himself well. * He first points out that the evidence of Guillaume's mother is really the evidence of the author of the poem, Jean Renart. Jean Renart
is known as a very clever author, but often a very malicious one. In l'Escoufle, which is a most fascinating adventure
story, he places his high-born and virtuous heroine in
■^Op. cit., p. 453 ff. 43
situations where it is not very likely such a lady would have been. At one point she apprentices herself to a maker of bodices (or more probably wimples), as a simple working woman. This would have been an unlikely situation for a noble lady in feudal society. Furthermore, although the virtue of this working woman is affirmed several times, it is noted that she has greater success and is better paid because the clients admired her beautiful eyes. It is lalso pointed out that her house was the gathering place for all the gay blades in the neighborhood. As a sideline she shampooed the hair of wealthy gentlemen— a profession which even today does not imply impeccable virtue. So we may take with a large grain of salt Jean Renart's work as represent ative of the manners of the time.
The songs themselves can be examined for evidence of their intention as songs for women. The one that Guillaume's pious mother sings, No. II, is given in only two stanzas, a fact which is unfortunate because the song is not found elsewhere and we never really know how the affair of Aude and Doon turned out. The situation is that of the mother and daughter at their work. The mother (who, however, "le cuer ot courtois”) scolds her daughter because she is not paying 44’
enough attention to her work and advises her to fo rg e t her
love for Doon. The only reply she gets is:
Tant bon amor fist bele Aude en D o o n and we are not sure that even this is intended b y -the poet to be a direct statement from the daughter or m e r e l y a suit able refrain. It clearly does not indicate the degree of submission generally demanded of the daughters o f "dames" and "rolnes" at that time.
Some of the others are even less suitable f o x ’ the women*s quarters. Belle Aiglentine's mother t e l l s her to take off her surcoat in No. IV. Aiglentine demurs, but knows how to make excuses: it is cold. As a matter of fact, she is pregnant and does not want her mother to know It. Will he marry her? She has not even asked him yet. B e l l e Oriolant
(No. XIV) is dreaming of her lover. On going to b e d at night she wants to embrace him. He comes. She e m b r a c e s him, in spite of what people will say. Belle Yolanz (No. VIII), who is married, is reproved by her mother for t a l k i n g too much to Count Mahi. Her mother does not even r e a l l y want to take her to task:
Ma fille estes, faire lo doi. -
As a reply Yolanz tells her that for nothing in t h e world will she desist, in spite of what her husband a n d all his 45
relatives may say. Raynaut (No. Ill) had believed that
Arembor was unfaithful to him. She persuades him that she
has not been and they are reconciled. Where? In his room where he.is stretched out on the bed. The 'fille a roi'
in No. X is married but she longs for her true love, Count
Gui. He appears and comforts her. How, we are not told.
But it happens under the 11 ante ram^e" in her husband*s
garden. Yzabel (No. IX) is also married, but she does not
have a lover. She is, however, at the top of the tower
longing for one. Her lady-in-waiting knows of a good one.
The poem opportunely stops at that point. The other Ydlanz
(No. VII) goes even farther. She, too, dreams of her lover.
He arrives and thinks that she does not love him any more.
She knows how to prove to him that she does and the result,
"en mi lo lit", is described by the use of a term that would be more at home on the walls of the men's room than in r milady's chamber. Even Gaiete (No. XIII), innocent thotugh
this chanson appears, meets the "6nfes Gerairs", on whom
she has never laid eyes until the moment, and does not■ i hesitate to run off with him to his own country without in
any way consulting the wishes of her parents or even her
sister, who is present and not very happy about the affair. Are these songs designed for impressionable young
ladies to sing? Or, for that matter, for "dames" and
"rolnes"? Faral is justified in wondering if they were ever
intended for feminine consumption. But he has yet another
cause for doubt. He cites the use made of the chanson de
toile in the Lai d*Aristote. Here it is evidently considered
so aphrodisiac that it is used as the final one in a series
of songs that break down the resistance of the old philoso
pher who has vowed to renounce love. Furthermore, the girl who sings it is neither a "dame" nor a "rolne". She is an
experienced temptress— in the legend she was a Hindu siren—
and there is no question of her virtue. We know that.
As to the question of whether the songs were sung by
the ladies in the castles of medieval France while working
on their embroidery, Faral points out that, even if such is
the express setting of a number of them and the implied one
in most, the poet has taken great pains to define the milieu.
He maintains that such explicit definition would not have been necessary if the pieces had been destined to be sung by ladies of this station for the ears of other ladies who knew very well the aristocratic and feudal life from which
the heroines are drawn. Such a group, he says, would hot have indulged in painting itself: On ne trouve gu&re, en effet, d'oeuvre litt^raire qui soit comme l'auto-peinture, si l'on peut dire, d'un groupe social par lui-m£me. Les premiers auteurs, les meilleurs, les plus nombreux, de romans mondains n'ont pas £t£, aux Xlle et Xllle si^cles, des mondains. Les pe&mes lyriques ou intervient un element dramatique n'ont jamais le caract&re, direct ou indirect, d'une confession individuelle ou sociale.
Faral also notes that while the mother in the Guillaume
de Dole does say that these songs were sung by ladies and
queen, the whole of this romance is placed in an almost mythical "once upon a time" and is not intended to reflect
the manners and customs of the time of its composition. He
again reminds us that the reliability of Jean Renart as a painter of society was suspect from the start.
For the question of who did compose the chansons de toile
and for whom they were intended, Faral presents first the evidence of the one known author, Audefroi le B^tard, who was not a woman and did not write expressly for them. He
then cites the rather cryptic ending of No. XIV:
Ne sai que plus vous en devis: Ensi avengne a toz amis! Et je, qui ceste chanqon fis Sor la rive de mer pansis, Consauz a Deu bele Aelis.
Regardless of what the full meaning of these lines is, it is obvious that their author is not a woman, and it does not
appear that they were intended particularly to be sung by 48) t women while working in their chambers. Faral links No.
VII to these facts also by assuming that they are by the
same author as the rest of the chanson. He bases this assump tion on the almost equal balance between rhyme and assonance in the two and on the prevalence of masculine verse endings in both of them.
Faral also notes, in agreement with Gaston paris^ that chansons de toile are rare, and questions the supposition that many of them ever existed. Their sudden disappearance he attributes to the fact that they appeared just as sudden ly. He cites as evidence the fact that all of the manus cripts in which they are found were written between 1212
(1199 according to Servois) and 1250, and maintains that all the pieces were composed by poets who consciously adopted an archaic style to give the impression that they were copying something antique:
Mais. qu!,on suppose un po&te ing^nieux qui, un beau jour, serait parti sur l'id^e de la reverie d'amour instance au coeur d'une jeune fille. II imagine celle-ci, non point comme une libre jeune fille du peuple, mais comme une demoiselle de haut rang. 11 se la repr£sente derri&re les murs d'un chateau, vaquant aux travaux de son £tat. 11 lui pr£te (quelle femme s'en serait vantee?), avec les hardiesse de la passion indomptable, des initiatives qui ne vont gu&re avec la morale admise, qui la heurtent, qui la d£fient. Le thime est audacieux; il risque de choquer. Le po&te transpose done; il se met S. l'abri en rejetant
3 % n a "Notice" appended to the introduction to Gustave Servois, op. cit., p. XCV. l'aventure en des temps passes, dont les chansons de geste conservent le souvenir. Il imite le tour et les formules de ces vieilles chansons. Il archaise; et ce faisant, il lui arrive de faire du faux ancien. Ainsi serait nd un genre, un petit genre. Et la pieuse m&re de Guillaume de Dole a peut-£tre servi, ou contribu^, h faire passer une supercherie litteraire, dont Jean Renart n'^tait pas sans doute 1*auteur, mais le complice amuse.34
This, in sum, is Faral's thesis on the origin and the intention of the chanson de toile. It had already been advanced in B^dier and Hazard's Histoire de la litterature francaise33 several years prior to Faral's article. However, 36 Raymond Joly credits this part of the book to Faral also.
This theory calls to mind B^dier's on the origin of the chansons de geste.37 In fact, B^dier had said somewhat the same thing as Faral, except that he was applying it to all
French lyric poetry:
Done, vers le milieu du Xlle si&cle, en quelque cour seigneurale, un trouv&re S. jamais in- connaissable, — mais qui fut vraiment un po&te— congut cette id£e singuliere et jolie d*exploiter
34Faral, op. cit., p. 462.
33The new edition is called Litterature franqaise (Paris: Larousse, 1948). This material is found in Volume 1, p. 69.
360p. cit., p. 51.
37cf. Joseph B^dier, Les l^gendes ^piques, 3rd ed., 4 vols, (Paris: Champion, 1921— original edition 1908). 50.
les chansons de mai et d'animer d'une vie plus complexe les personnages fugitifs des rondeaux et carole.3®
Like Bedier's ideas, those of Faral stirred up a whirl wind of scholarly protest. Both Guido Saba39 and Marcello
Spaziani49 are somewhat sceptical, but neither will attempt to disprove the thesis. Saba even finds it 11 seducente" .
Iren^e Cluzel4-*- does not agree, but his chief interest is elsewhere. Scheludko43 reaches nearly the same conclusions as Faral, although he wrote before Faral’s article appeared.
Alfred Schossig4*3 does not display familiarity with Faral*s article, but his contentions are in quite the opposing direction. Antonio Viscardi, in a review of Spaziani's and
3®Joseph Bedier, "Les F£tes de Mai et les commence ments de la po^sie lyrique au moyen ctge" in Revue des Deux Mondes, Vol. 135 (1896), p. 161.
390p. cit., Introduction, p. 16 ff.
4 0 L ’antica lirica francese, (Modena: Society Tipo- grafica Modenese, 1954).
4 l"Les jaryas et 1'amour courtois" in Cultura Neolatina XX, p. 233-250.
4 Scheludko, "Beitrage zu: Entstrehungsgeschichte der altprovenzalischen Literatur: die Volksliedertheorie" in Zeitschrift fttr franzdsische Sprache und Literatur LII, 1929, pp. 1-38 and 201-266.
430p. cit. 5 1
of Saba's books in Filologia Romanza,44 takes both to task
for what he considers support of Faral's ideas. But the 4 5 best refutation of Faral's thesis comes from Raymond Joly, whose arguments are worth a more detailed examination.
After reviewing Faral*s ideas Joly advises a look
at the poems themselves, considering each as an entity in
itself, and a work of art. Only thus can we succeed in grouping them satisfactorily. The manuscripts are not of much help in this since the chansons de toile are not grouped in them as a genre and the chronological order of the manuscripts does not even aid us in establishing a chronology
for the individual chansons de toile, much less in grouping them within the genre.
Faral has noted the repetition of ideas and lines which are a feature of the epic style, the "recommencements".
He has also stated that the heroines of the chansons de toile are modeled after the type found in the epic. Both of these factors, the "recommencements" and the similarity
in type of the heroines, lead Faral to believe that the chansons de toile were conscious imitations of the epic....
4 4 Vol. Ill, p. 322-5.
4 ^0p. cit., p. 51-66. 52
Joly points out that 11 recommencements" are not the exclusive
property of the chanson de geste, nor are heroines of the
type found both in them and in the chansons de toile. These
characteristics are met in literature of a later date than
the latest possible one which we may assign to the chansons
de toile.
As for metric criteria, he reminds us that Saba has
already noted the same metric features used by different
critics to prove quite divergent assumptions. Since, Joly maintains, the usages of French versification were not yet
stabilized at the latest possible time of composition of the
chansons de toile, in order to use them as criteria for dating
a work a number of similar phenomena relating to a particular
period would have to appear in the same poem.
Joly then proceeds to a grouping of the songs based on
content— a grouping from which the order used herein was
drawn. The first group comprises songs in which the heroine
is a young girl in the throes of a profound passion which has
run up against an apparently insuperable force. In No. I and
II this force if parental opposition. In spite of the
strength of her love, which she will not or cannot abandon,
she recognizes the inevitability of the situation. Her 53
parents are able to keep her from her lover and apparently will do so. She will not, however, give up her love. In
Nos. Ill, IV and V it is the lover himself who poses the obstacle to the continuance of the love. In this case there is more possibility of a happy outcome, since appeal may be made to the man who may then readmit her to his favor. In
No. VI belle Doe awaits her lover who does not come. We have this song only in fragmentary form so we do not know why he does not come or, for that matter, whether he ever does or not. However, the appeal is still to the lover himself. In all this group the heroine is possessed of an indomitable love which cannot be denied, but she recognizes the inevitability of the social order which opposes itself to her love. The appeal is only to the order; there is no thought of going against it. The male is all powerful and the will of parents unbreakable. In these traits these heroines and their situations resemble those of the epics and, by reflection their lovers resemble the heroes of the chanson de geste. The hero inspires love; the heroine cannot resist and has no existence outside this love. The estab lished order is invincible and is not to be questioned.
Joly's second group includes Nos. VII, VIII, IX and X and perhaps No. XI. This last gong is in such fragmentary 34
form that it is difficult to tell much about its content.
In this group the tone is much lighter and the emphasis has changed. The focus is now on the emotion itself and on the heroine's conception of her love. She no longer waits for grace from her master or for the approval of the social order. When her lover arrives (No. VII) she takes him into her arms. The heroines of this group are not ingenues.
Some of them are married; those of Nos. VIII, IX and X.
The theme of the "mal marine" begins to creep in in a rather undeveloped form. There is less narration and more lyric.
Assonance gives way to rhyme. In No. X this change is com plete. The lyric easura appears. There is more sensuality and a much greater understanding of the feelings of the woman.
The style is more polished and the poems more delicate.
However, traditional elements are not lacking, either in the setting or in the form. Repetitions (the epic "recommence ments") are frequent, particularly in No. IX. The setting involves needlework and an austere mother. This mother, however, no longer commands the unquestioned obedience that she did in the first group. Her daughter*s replies to her questions are hardly even respectful.
No. XII is another fragment and a rather cryptic one.
It seems to be the beginning of a narrative, or at least a 5(5
portion of one, but it is given over mostly to description,
leaving us completely in doubt as to the action. The opening verses resemble those of a reverdie. Joly does not consider
No. XII a true chanson de toile at all. With regard to
Aigline*s famous train, the means by which Faral tends to date the whole corpus well into the thirteenth century,
Joly cites Roncaglia as having found allusions to such a mode in sermons well before the thirteenth century.
No. XIII presents a very special case. It has two heroines instead of one and no element of needlework at all.
There is much more of a feeling of nature than in any of the other chansons de toile, particularly in its refrain.
The coupe is 6 + 4, an arrangement found in only one other of the songs. There appears to be a lyric cesura, but there is an error in the manuscript at this line and various interpretations or corrections render the exact nature of the cesura questionable. In the manuscript the line reads as if Gerairs had chosen Oriour when he has chosen Gaiete and goes off with her. The style and setting suggest folk lore strongly. The song, even if not in its present version, is probably of folkloric origin. Even Scheludko,^® who is
460p. cit., p. 213. 56
hostile to the idea of assigning any folkloric origin to the chansons de toile, admits that the refrain of this song must be from folkloric sources. This admission amuses Joly greatly.
No. VIII, on the other hand, is a little bourgeois drama and Joly sees in it the beginnings of the imitative type of chanson de toile as in the work of Audefroi le B^tard.
Joly considers No. VIII of later origin than the other anonymous chansons de toile:
La date r^cente de cette production ne fait aucun doute, et se voit encore confirmee par la m^trique.
Thus he finds the chansons de toile, exclusive of
Audefroi*s imitations, divided into two central groups. The first group shows many archaic chracteristics, both in form and in content. The second shows the introduction of new ideas and manners, and in some cases a few scraps of familiar ity with the vocabulary of courtly love. He does not ex plicitly claim that the first group is older than the second.:
Il me semblerait t^m^raire de nier a priori que ces deux classes de po&mes soient apparues l'une apr&s 1 *autre, comme le roman apr&s le geste; cette
47Joly, op. cit., p. 58. 57
position hypercritique sera devenue intenable si nous d^montrons, ce qui est d£jct h. moiti£ fait, que les oeuvres que nous sommes tenths de declarer ant£rieurs aux autres expliquent logiquement la forme et le developpement des secondes.4®
Raymond Joly credits the composition of the chansons de toile to the jongleurs. In this he is in agreement with
Theodor Prings1 Minnesinger und Troubadours.4 ® He then envisions an audience which had begun to grow weary of chansons de geste, one which wanted something other than violence and battles, and one which demanded that women be given a more important place. The jongleurs, ever anxious to curry favor with their aristocratic audience, tried to oblige but were not able to remake themselves and refashion all their training at once. They began by imitating the epic, trying to place women in the place of the epic heroes.
At the same time these heroines retained their resemblance to those with which the jongleurs were familiar, the heroines of the epic, belle Aude and her like, as well as those
Saracen maidens who were always falling incurably in love with the heroes of the epics.
The substitution worked up to a point, but the position
4 8 Ibid., p. 59.
4®Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, VortrSge und Schriften, Heft 34, Berlin, 1949, p. 7. 58
of woman as a dependent— in literature whether she was in reality or not--and her lack of any existence apart from her hero made her an uncomfortable tenant in the role of the hero. This hero was unconquerable and irresistible, was allowed no weaknesses or vices (except "demesure", and this always brought about his downfall). It was hard to recon cile this concept with the image of woman as a dependent.
These imitation epics with female heroes soon began to fall apart at the seams. The heroines in their situations became ridiculous. The chanson de toile tended feither toward comedy ("comedie" in the Continental sense of the word) or gave rise to eroticism. Oriolanz in No. XIV and Amelot in
No. XV represent attempts to save the genre by complicating the plot and overlarding it with persiflage to show that the poet had knowledge of the new courtly attitudes then in style.
This did not work too well and the genre died out temporarily.
Finally, Joly maintains that Audefroi*s works were a later attempt to revive it by applying greater doses of the same medicine that had failed to save it in the first place.
Such is Joly's theory on how the ctensons de toile came into being and why they died.
In the latter part of his article Joly directly attacks
Faral*s theory of the "po&te ing^nieux". He cites the 59
appearance of archaic expressions which had lost their mean ing (such as "Francs de France", mentioned above), assonances no longer in use, and grammatical usages long out of fashion.
Faral sees these as proving that the chansons de toile were imitations hatched out in the mind of a poet who wished to appear archaic. Joly, on the contrary, does not believe that a thirteenth century trouv&re would have been suf ficiently familiar with historical grammar and phonology to have done this. To find one with this much ability and who would have remembered these traits he maintains that we should have to go back well into the twelfth century. This is about the earliest date of composition assigned to the chansons de toile in any case.^0 The plural in "lor premieres amors" which Faral takes to be conclusive of the relative modernity of the verse is no proof at all to Joly. He re minds us that these songs came down through a fairly long oral tradition even before being written down in the thirteen th century, and it would be asking a lot to expect them to pass through that much oral transmission without suffering the rigors of "modernisation". Occasional anachronism can \ be attributed to the scribes writing the manuscripts just
^®An exception is Frappier. See Jean Frappier, La po^sie lyrique en France au Xlle et Xllle sifecles. (Paris: Centre de Documentation Uhiversitaire, 1966). 60
. I
as well as to the authors, he maintains. The imperfect
rhyme: litsHenri in No. IV, taken by Faral as proof that
the poem could not be of the first half of the twelfth cen
tury, does not disturb Joly at all. He professes not to
understand Faral*s reasoning in this matter. The changing
of the refrain at the end of this song, in Faral*s view a
device for dating the poem, for Joly is merely necessitated
by logic. He is also sceptical of using feminine verse
endings as a method of dating. The analogical <2 at the end
of "tele" in No. V, line 32, would be more indicative of
the modernity of the line, he argues, if it did not show
archaic assonance in a poem where the other lines show
rhyme. Doon's return from a tournament rather than from a
war would have been just as contemporary in the first half
of the twelfth century as in the thirteenth. And the fact
that Doette reads a book is not astounding; what would have
been astounding would have been to show a man of the warrior
class reading a book in a presumed twelfth century setting.
If Faral finds it problematical to think of such an idea
occurring to an author of the time of the Oxford Roland the
problem is easily solved by simply not thinking of the
chansons de toile as being as old as the Roland. They
probably are not, Joly admits. Society would have had to 61i
begin refining itself and to cease thinking of military
exploits as the only things worth writing about and certain
new values would have had to be infused into it, woman to
occupy a position of some greater importance than she had at
the time of the Roland before there could even have been an
excuse for the writing of the chansons de toile. Faral also
makes much of the fact that Doette wishes to found an abbey
where a miracle will prevent the entrance of those who have
been false in love. To him this trait unfailingly betrays
the influence of courtly literature and, consequently, a •
later date of composition. Joly points out that Doette*s
first intention is simply to enter a convent. It is pre
cisely at the point in the poem where the specifications of
the establishment begin to take on a courtly air that the
refrain, up to this point a simple five syllable line, is
supplemented by an alexandrine. He believes these facts do
nothing but prove that alterations to the original poem were
made at a later date.
The metrical structure of the chanson de toile is the
last ground on which Joly tilts with Faral. The chansons de
' toile do have a characteristic metric structure. What then
is the origin of this structure and from whence did it come?
Are its stanzas epic laisses made uniform as Faral seems to 62
think? If so, why was this done? Storost51 thinks that they were influenced in this respect by medieval Latin church music. Joly discards Storost's theory since the chansons de toile certainly show little affinity to ecclesi astical literature or much of any churchly influence. He
CO refers to a work of Hans Spanke ^ which mentions a Latin stanza of the Carolingian period of essentially the same form as the one used in the chanson de toile: a fixed number of similar lines tied together by the same rhyme or assonance and followed by an independent refrain. The form is used elsewhere in a Provencal alba and in several poems by Gontier de Soignies. Minus the refrain it is the stanza form off the
Vie de Saint-Alexis. Thus the stanza form of the chanson de toile is not isolated and must have come from a central trunk which gave off these other branches as well. All the products of this trunk are relatively simple and have something
^%olfgang Storost, "Geschichte der altfranzBsischen und altprovenzalischen Romanzenstrophe" in Romantistische Arbeiten XVI, Halle, 1930, p. 70 £ f .
^ Beziehungen zwischen romanischer und mittellateinis- cher Lyrik mit besonderer Ber ticks ichtung der Metrik und Musik, (Berlin: Abhandlungen der Gesellschaft der Wissens- chaften zu GBttingen, Philologische-historische Klasse, 3. Folge, Nr. 18, 1936) p. 53 ff. 63
of the popular touch to them, though not the mythical and almost mystical aura with which Romanticism invested the term
"popular". Joly then goes back to the "chansons de femme" which must have been extant over a large part of Europe at an early date. We know they existed in Prance because laws were passed to suppress them, but not one of them has come down to us in its original form. These rather primitive compositions died out quickly in Southern Prance under the weight of troubadouresque literature and did not survive much longer in northern Prance because of the popularity of the epic, according to Joly. It is only in the narrative literature that fell into the hands of the trouv&res that we catch a glimpse of them and get some idea of what French lyric poetry might have become if it had not undergone a massive Provencal influence. Joly does not think the stanza of the chanson de toile goes back to the epic laisse; he thinks it is derived from a Latin metric form which in it self is influenced by these "chansons de femme" that no longer exist as such.
Joly maintains that this viewpoint as to the origin of the chanson de toile as a descendant of the "chanson de femme" helps to explain Gaiete and Oriour (No. XIII) which had previously been considered somewhat of a mystery, its 64
mait&re has nothing of the epic in spite of resemblances in * its metric structure. It illustrates well what Joly thinks is the case for the chansons de toile as a group: it is the product of a jongleur, steeped in the traditions and forms of the chansons de geste and one who is trying his hand at material of an entirely different sort from a different source. His habits and training cannot be shed entirely? the song still has a resemblance to the epic, but the new matiere shines through. In Gaiete and Oriour it takes over completely except for the form. Or, as Joly says in his conclusion:
Tout ce qu'on peut affirmer, c'est la rencontre dans la chanson de toile de deux traditions, celle de la chanson de femme, qui se r£v&le dans tous les details de Gaiete et Oriour, et dans la donn^e initiale de la metrique des autres po&mes, et d*autre part, submergeant la premiere jusqu'ci la rendre presque imperceptible, les usages des jongleurs. Voilci, si l'on veut, une de ces fameuses chaines dont on ne voit que les deux bouts? puisse le lecteur ne pas me trouver trop cr^dule si je me declare resolu ci ne lcicher ni l'un ni 1*autre.
So we see the arguments advanced on the two sides of the controversy over the origin of the chansons de toilew
Actually, the arguments are more interesting for the dust they have stifcred up in the process than for any conclusions
53Joly, op. cit., p. 66. 65
they have reached. They have been chiefly concerned with dating the chansons de toile and with deciding whether they composed by poets who used the language and matiere current ly around them or by a later poet who consciously archaized.
The dating question all boils down to whether they originated in the twelfth century or in the early thirteenth. The ones interpolated in the Guillaume de Dole would necessarily have been composed at the very beginning of the thirteenth century.
Considering the perspective and the fact that, barring some new discovery, we can date none of them (those of Audefroi always excepted) with any degree of precision, the question shrinks to minor importance. Whether they were the work of
Faral's "po&te ingenieux" or of a number of earlier poets
(who would also have had to be rather ingenious) raises no bar to our appreciation of them. Whether their archaisms were spontaneous and natural with their creators or whether they were fabricated by some thirteenth century Chatterton (if there were Chattertons in the thirteenth century) out of whole cloth--cloth which turned out to look quite like that worn by the heroes of the epic but in a later style— is impossible to prove or disprove beyond doubt in many areas.
Even if we assume that a maliciously clever poet invented them there is still no proof that he invented the genre; he 66
may have been imitating one with which he was familiar, either because it was popular at the time or because he knew it through his scholarly researches, but a form which has not been transmitted to us in any other way than through his imitations.
Perhaps the best argument against Faral*s theory of artificial origin would be a careful and reasoned look at the work of Audefroi le Bcfctard. Here we have known imitations of a f&Arly well-known date. Was he imitating an imitation, copying a falsification? His work is prolix, complicated, at times mincing, and often melodramatic. This is not to say that it is without value or even without vital force.
But if the known imitations turned out this way, is there not reason to suspect that another poet's work would fall into the same molds or at least into similar ones? The five chansons de toile by Audefroi le B^tard have a sameness to them. They all bear the stamp of his style. The others have great variety in their styles. Was our "po&te ingenieux" clever enough to have a variety of styles at his command? Or were there a number of "po&tes ingenieux" working, indepen dently or in conjunction with one another, all to the same end? perhaps, but it does not seem too probable. And why did they imitate (or invent) only the chanson de toile? 67
Why not a 11 faux ancien" in other genres too? Faral*s theory seems to leave too many questionable points unanswered to bear much acceptance. I, for one, would reject it.
As has been stated above, the importance of the argu ment over the origin of these songs is more the incidental material it has brought into the foreground than the con clusions it has generated. Some of this material brings us to the basic mati&re of the poems as distinguished from the gross content in their present form. In discussing
Joly's article mention was made of the possible folkloric sources of the themes and of the 11 chanson de femme" which is closely related and is a possible source for the chanson de toile. These songs should be treated a little more fully if we are to get a clear appreciation of them and through them of the chansons de toile.
A definition of the "chanson de femme" as it is to be used will help to make clear its meaning and implications in the ensuing discussion. There is no specific form for the "chanson de femme". None of them has come down to us in anything resembling the pure state. Therefore there is room for much conjecture as to what they actually were, in using the term here it is not assumed that they were necessarily composed by women or even for women, certainly not at every 68
stage. Probably the first ones were composed for women if
not by them. They were about women and take the woman's point of view. They are not mysterious or mysticy they deal with down-to-earth sit\£:ions and ones the singer could logic
ally be presumed to know from experience. They do not necessarily assume that the singer has had this experience.
They are imaginative and emotive. They rarely deal with the
supernatural and religion enters into them very slightly and only in its social aspects. The chief character is always a woman. This is not the only possible definition of a
"chanson de femme" and it may not always be found suitable, but it represents the concept intended by the use of the term
in discussion here. Since we have no surviving texts it
is difficult to give a definition that would be
authoritative and exclusive.
It is further postulated that these songs were composed
for women, and possibly but not necessarily by women, for use in their early dances, generally referred to as caroles.
Thus the "chanson de femme" carries with it not only a musical connotation but a choreographic one as well. The
"chansons de femme" became the direct and not very distant ancestors of the chansons de car ole.. the dancing songs of the Middle Ages, some of which have survived as the 69
estampie. ^ That the "chansons de femme" did exist is proved by a number of edicts from the Carolingian period forbidding their use by nuns, and later by the people in general. They are described in these edicts as songs of the people and it is quite believable that they had degenerated in many cases to a point where legal and ecclesiastical censures were well warranted. Some modern survivals may be our children*s games, such as "Froggie-in-the -middle" and "Ring-around- the rosie" — or the "Hokey-pokey" which was the rage among
American officers stationed in Britain during World War I I .
The medieval dances are represented a number of times in paintings and sculptures which have survived. These general ly show the participants singing. Since the dances and songs were performed by amateurs all of those taking part could not be expected to know the song perfectly from beginning to end.
CA Madame Carla Cremonesi has some of these dancing songs, which she calls "canzoni a ballo", in her Lirica francese del medio evo, op. cit., with a bibliography on them but no section devoted specially to dancing songs. Joseph B^dier's article in the Revue des Deux Mondes XXXI, 1906, p. 398-424 treats them, and Jacques Chailly also in "La chanson populaire franqaise au Moyen Age" in Annales de 1*University de Paris XXVI, p. 153-174. They are also treated in Jeanroy* s Origines, op. cit. Bartsch includes some in his Romanzen und Pastourelien, op. cit., but under the heading "Romanzen" without distinguishing the dancing songs. I am indebted to all of these sources for the mater ial given here. 70
Consequently they had a leader or coryphee to sing the stanzas
and the chorus of dancers repeated the refrain. The dances were done either in a long chain or in a circle, the dancers holding hands. The choreography consisted of some variation on the form in which the circle or chain took three steps to the left, executed a few movements in place, then took three more steps to the left, and so on. The stanza was
sung or recited by the coryphee during the movement to the
left, perhaps to the accompaniment of a musical instrument, then the chorus sang the refrain during the movement in place. They were simple dances of the people, but at that point in history the upper classes were not much farther ad vanced than the common people in an intellectual way and simple exercises such as the ones described amused them as much as they amused the people on the village green. The
"chansons de femme" were retained by the upper classes and refined as the manners and minds of those who were executing them became more sophisticated.
The songs that accompanied the dances were tailored to fit their movements— unless it was the other way around, in either case, they went together and the songs consisted of stanzas, generally made up of verses of equal length, ending in an assonance or rhyme to measure the paces of the dancers, 71
and a refrain simple enough to be easily learned and retain
ed, often of a single syllable. The refrains did not agree
in assonance, rhyme or meter with the verses of the stanzas
since they were sung to different dance movements. Nor did
the refrains always follow the content of the stanzas.
Often they were mere exclamations or nonsense syllables,
like the "Aye! aye! aye!" of Creole songs or the "Hey nonny
nonny" of some English ballads. Jeanroy has made an exhaus- 55 tive study of these refrains in his Origines.
Since the refrains were not tied to the rest of the
song either metrically or in content they could be used
interchangeably in more than one song. From this point it was only a step to the practice of borrowing a refrain from
an older song and using it when composing a newer one, a practice which became quite widespread. In fact, in his
Bibliographie des Chansonniers Franpais,Raynaud finds it necessary to distinguish between "chansons S. refrain" (songs which have their own refrains) and "chansons avec des re
frains" (song which have refrains taken from other songs).
Thanks to this practice of interchange and reuse we have
550P . cit.
560p. cit. 72
refrains which are much older than the songs which contain them. In fact, there is reason to believe that we have re frains much older than any song which has survived the changes of taste of succeeding ages.
Where did the "chansons de femme" and 11 chansons de carole" originate? It is impossible really to say. Some form of them seems to have been common to every literature in western Europe and to many others also. Many authors
CQ cite evidence of them in Slavic literatures and Schelddko as far away as China. Nothing that we have can be signalled out as one of the "original" songs. One of the most inter esting evidence of them that escaped notice until relatively recent times, is the jarchas^8 found in certain Arabic and
Hebreo-Arabic ppems from Spain. They are short refrains inserted at the end of the stanzas of an Arabic or Hebrew
^^cf. Friedrich Gennrich, "Sind die Refrains Fragmente von popularen oder popular gewordenen Liedern oder voll- standige Volkdlieder?" in Zeitschrift ftlr romanische Philoloqie 71 (1955), p. 365-90.
580 p. cit.
5^This word, which is Arabic in origin, seems to be transliterated into Latin letters in a bewildering array of forms: jarcha, jarya, khardja, kharge, rharja are some of forms in which it is found. Jarcha will be used here except in direct quotations. 73
poem known as a muwassaha or, in a more popularized version more often found in North Africa than in Spain, a zejel.
There are several very interesting things about these jarchas, and not the least is their language. Although the muswassaha is in Arabic or Hebrew, either literary or popular, and the zejel in popular Arabic, the jarchas are in a Romance dia lect, seemingly the Mozarabic form of Spanish spoken by the indigenous population in Spain during the Arabic domination.
This fact was not realized for a long time because the manus cripts were written in Arabic of Hebrew script, neither of which normally writes down the vowels. They are always placed in the mouth of a woman specking of or to her lover.
They show themes unknown to the classic Arabic or Hebrew poetry in which they are found, and a violence of passion in sharp contrast to the muwassaha otherwise. It is apparent that they were tfcken from some other source and used in the muwassahas, and that they were anterior to the muwassahas themselves. Where did they come from? The question has not been adequately answered and no attempt to answer it will be made here. However, most opinions tend to agree that they are evidences of a popular poetry in a Romance language existing at the same time as or prior to the date of the composition of the muwassahas. Pierre Le Gentil has written 74
studies of them and he exposes the idea, first announced by
Menendez-Pidal, that they are part of a body of feminine poetry originating in Galicia and spreading in all directions, south to Arab Spain and North Africa, north to Prance and 60 thence to the rest of Europe. One of the closest evidences of this influence is the Portuguese cantigas d ' amigo which show many affinities with the jarchas in themes and to some extent in versification. They show a girl speaking to her lover who is not present, or to someone else, ofter her mother, about her lover. Sometimes there is evidence of her mother's opposition to the love, but there is no vio lence in the cantiga d 1 amigo. The atmosphere is generally melancholy, sometimes somber. Another evidence, somewhat farther afield, is the Old German winileodos. women's songs which are not always sad but which are full of longing. In 61 another studyox Le Gentil classes all these songs as evidences of a poetic substratum of indigenous poetry common to all Romania (roughly, western Europe or those parts o f it
60 Pierre Le Gentil, "La strophe zadjalesgue, les i khardjas et le probl&me des origines du lyrisme roman" in Romania LXXXIV, p. 1-27, 209-250 and 409-411.
^Pierre Le Gentil, La literature franpaise du moyen £ge, (Paris: Armand Colin, 1963). 75
which had been in direct contact with Roman civilization)
of which the jarchas are another manifestation. In a third 62 study he specifically links the jarchas to a "chanson de
femme" which he says was common to all occidental countries. 63 Iren^e Cluzel goes even fafcther and says that these themes
are neither occidental nor oriental but common to all
poets:
... adieux, absence, abandon, desir de revoir ce qu'on aime, tourments d'amour, voili. sans doute des traits que nous offre le lyrisme ^rotique de tous les temps et de tous les pays. IIs sont universels et gen^raux. Aucune poesie nationale, aucune civilisation ne peut en revendiquer 1'exclusivity.®4
Another milieu which could have produced "chansons de
femme" would be the May festivals— the ancestors of our
Maypole dances— which probably sprung from pagan fertility 65 festivals, most particularly around the so-called May
privileges. These are a part of a tradition that in the
®^Pierre Le Gentil, "Le Virelai, le Villancico, le Problfeme des origines arabes" in Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1954. 63„ .. Op. ext.
®4 Ibid., p. 246.
®®0n this subject Robert Graves gives abundant infor mation in The White Goddess, (New York: Creative Age Press, 1948). 76
Middle Ages women were allowed unlimited freedom in matters
of love during the May festivals. It does not appear that
they were actually allowed to do anything they desired in
this line during the festival (court records would probably
show evidence of it if they had been), but they could at
least talk of anything and sing about anything they wished.
Thus the "chansons de femme" sung at that time became a
sort of emotional outlet giving free range to the erotic
fantasies of the singer. But even before this custom sprung
up there must have been "chansons de femme":
We are brought ultimately to visualize a primitive world of women dancing and chanting stanzas of love provided for them by the poets (a Gluckslaut or Klage "im Munde des MSdchens, aber von einem Mann, dem Dichter, hereingelegt"), who thus achieve a vicarious pleasure: that of hearing their own conception of woman (as a passionate being who voices only her own uninhibited desire) echoed by the women who sing the stanzas composed for them.®®
Were the "chansons de femme" the direct ancestors of
our chansons de toile? It seems probable, but the line of
development of French lyric poetry is obscured and hazy
at this period. Most critics think they were. Robert
Bossuat says:
®®Leo Spitzer, "The Mozarabic Lyric and Theodore Frings' Theories" in Comparative Literature, 4 (1952), p. 1 -2 2 . 77
Elle [la po^sie lyrique frangaise] £tait n£e spontan£- ment dUs les premiers temps du moyen Sge sur les l&vres des danseurs qui c£l#braient de leurs jeux simples et rustiques le mois de mai et le retour du renouveau, complice habituel des amours paysannes; puis les gens des chateaux eux-mdtnes s'^taient laisses prendre h. ces divertissements et les avaient adapt^s £ leurs gotits plus raffin^s. D'ingenieux trouv&res amateurs ou professionels, par des recherches de rythmes, des combinaisons m^lodiques, compliquerent et perfectionn&rent ci. 1 *intention d'auditoires plus raffines, les chansons de toile, les chansons dramatiques 06 la mal marine et 1 *abandonee d^plorent 1 *injustice du sort.87
Elsewhere he says:
1 1 n'est pas douteux que les premieres mainfestations de la po^sie populaire furent des chansons a danser, chansons tr&s simples et toujours dramatiques, form^es de couplets chant^s par un soliste et d*un refrain qu'on reprenait en choeur. Ce type nous est conserv^ par les chansons d'histoire.88
The chansons de toile do not, however, represent the
"chansons de femme" in any early form. They are rather the end of a chain than the beginning. In the state in which we find them in the manuscripts they are conscious works of art, the work of trained poets with much skill and a cer tain amount of sophistication. They represent a phase of the "chanson de femme" after it had been taken up by the in habitants of the castles. Again we quote from Bossuat:
670p. cit., Vol. 2, p. 134.
68Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 4. 78i
Quand, au d^but du Xlle si£cle, la haute soci^te emprunta au peuple des divertissements elle accueillit egalement ses chansons, non plus sous leur forme naive, mais en compliquant le rythme et le style, en leur donnant le caract&re courtois. ... Dans la forme ou nous les poss^dons ce sont des remaniements de chansons primitives comme l'attestent certains archalsmes de leur langue et la simplicity de leur versification. Ces chansons qu'on appelle chansons d'histoire paree qu'elles traitent genyralement d'une courte aventure epique accompagnaient les travaux de femmes ou scandaient leurs danses et leurs divertissements. Et comme en ce temps-1^, comme dans 1 * antiquity, leur besogne principale consistait h. filer la laine ou le chanvre, que la monotonie de cette occupation etait avantageusement rompue par des chansons doucement fredonnyes, celle-ci sont par- fois qualifiyes de "chansons de toile".®®
Were these songs ever actually sung by women while working on cloth in the privacy of the gynaeceums? We have no outside documentary evidence; i.e., no laws or edicts
supporting or prohibiting the practice, and no eye-witness reports. But the women's quarters were reasonably sacro
sanct and it is possible that legal and ecclesiastical authorities were not concerned to such an extent with what went on there. Scribes and historians, the reporters of the day, possibly considered such matters beneath their notice.
The best witnesses we have are the romans mondains.
Guillaume's mother and the bourgeoise Marote certainly say.
®^Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 5, 10. 79
the songs were sung there and by women. But we have learn
ed to be a bit on guard about the author of the Guillaume
de Dole with regard to the reliability of the social customs
which he portrays. He was a poet, not a chronicler. The
author of the Roman de la Violette was copying an establish
ed practice, and he was a poet also. The best evidence in
these cases is the incidental: both of these ladies are
working on cloth when they are discovered and both are
asked to sing a song, not a chanson de toile but merely a
song. Both reply with a chanson de toile as if it were the
most natural thing to do under the circumstances. This genre was associated in the mind of the poet (who put it into the
minds of his personnages) with cloth working. Both ladies
are later asked to sing when they are not working on cloth
and reply with something else. Henri d*Andeli distinctly
calls the song a chanson de toile in the Lai d^ristote;, but
the mistress of Alexander is by no means engaged in spinning—
not thread at any rate. Aristotle capitulates at once. Was
the author implying that the genre had come to be regarded
as irresistibly sensual? Probably he was not. She was
trying to tempt a man who had forsworn love and intimate
feminine companionship. Having sung several songs and gone
through a few motions to impress on him the idea that she 80
is a woman she then casts under his nose, as it were, the
perfume of the boudoir— a picture of women's quarters and
their intimacy— things forbidden to him unless he breaks
his oath. He does. The same technique of seduction is used
later on, this time by the devil himself. Most of the drama
tic and operatic versions of the Faust stadry wtitten in the
nineteenth century show Mephistopheles revealing to the aged
philosopher a sudden vision of Gretchen with which he falls
in love4 on the spot and agrees to sign a contract with the
devil. In these she is always spinning when the vision
appears. The promise of intimacy is the blow that breaks
down the sworn celibate. Goethe's version is somewhat
different— the spinning is not at this point— but it ds still
this aura of intimacy that sweeps Faust off his feet. Henri
d'Andeli was probably implying that the chanson de toile had
an intimately feminine connotation.
In contrast to these feminine connections of the chan
son de toile we have the boldness of the subject matter which
Faral has pointed out. It is quite true that these songs do
not always reflect the submissiveness to feudal etiquette which a high-born lady was supposed to absorb until it became a part of her being. Certainly if young girls were present these songs would not be conducive to the training 81
of their minds and their behavior for the needs of the
society to which they were destined. However, let us remem
ber that the chansons de toile were not intended primarily
for instruction. They are lyric, meant to please and to
distract rather than to teach. They may well represent the
fantasies in which the ladies indulged in private, thoughts which were permitted them since there was no question of
their putting them into action. Even Bossuat agrees to their highly fictional quality:
On imagine difficilement que la r^alite soit ci. la base de ces compositions faussement nalves et que les femmes de toute condition aient eu h. cette £poque le coeur aussi fragile.70
Were these fantasies a remnant of the May privileges mention ed above? Possibly, although no proof of such a filiation has been found.
In any case, spinning and cloth working have been associated with the ultimate in feminine intimacy since the time Of Homer and his Penelope at least. Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, who made a translation of parts of Paulin Paris's
Romanc&ro Francois in the late nineteenth century,7^ notes
^Robert Bossuat, Histoire de la literature franqaise. Vol. I "Le Moyen Age", (Paris: Del Duca de Gigord, 1955), p.81.
7^"Ancient French Romances from the French of Paulin Paris" in Writings, Vol. I (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1886). 82
that the inhabitants of Toulouse are in the habit of swear
ing by the distaff of Queen P^dauque— "par la quenouille de
la reine P^dauque". This Queen P^dauque is, of course, none
other than the "Berte au grand pie" of Villon's ballade,
Bertha Broadfoot of the English ballads, and the mother of
Charlemagne. The French today speak proverbially of the
time when Bertha spun, and in English the female line is
known as the distaff side. The Italians sigh and remark
nostalgically "Non & pi& il tempo che Berta filava". Even
New England Puritans had a bit of doggerel about the time
"when Adam delved and Eve span". The phrase is traceable to
Old English literature and from thence to medieval German.
If spinning was a characteristically feminine activity
and brought women together it had further connotations also.
Evel Gasparini has a most interesting article on the customs
that have accompanied feminine tasks at various times and 72 in various places. These customs, of course, are often much older than the chansons de toile. He points out that one good place to trace them is in the Slavic countries of
southeast Europe where such habits have hung on much longer
* 7 0 "A proposito delle *Chansons S toile'" in Studii in Onore de Italo Siciliano, Biblioteca dell'Archivum Romanicum, Vol. 86, (Firenze: Olschki), Part I, p. 457-66. than in the western countries generally considered as *more
progressive. Girls were taught to spin at the age of seven
in Great Russia and in Slavonia they could not entertain
proposals of marriage until they had completed a trousseau
spun, woven and embroidered by their own hands. As recently
as a few years ago in America, although Gasparini does not
note this custom, no girl who was brought up properly would
have thought of getting married without bringing with her a
quantity of sheets and pillow cases embroidered by her own
hands, generally monogrammed with the initial of her maiden
name.
Girls generally gathered together into a special room
to do their cloth working, according to Gasparini's article.
Special names were given to the room and to the sessions held
there. In many villages a separate building was constructed
for the purpose. In certain of these buildings, particularly
in Byelorussia, the spinning rooms served as dormitories
during the sessions, and in some cases all year long for the
unmarried girls. In parts of Serbia girls were required not
only to produce a certain amount of cloth by their sixteenth year but also to learn forty or fifty songs. The whole practice was prohibited by law in 1677, after several previous
attempts had failed to stamp it out. On the contrary, in 84
Russia frequenting these workrooms was considered a duty of girls of all classes, according to Gasparini, and the girl who did not was called "black", "a nun" or "a hermit" and rated as unfit for matrimony. Naturally, when the girls gathered together in their reserved quarters the first thing they wanted was for the boys to know they were there. In one district in Russia young men were required to present themselves at these workrooms upon reaching the military age. This requirement was not considered necessary else where, certainly not in France. In China, Assam, Burma and
Sumatra similar female workrooms existed and were regulated by law. In old China a girl learned to spin and to weave from an old woman under whose authority she was placed during the period of her learning. In Assam the "murong" were under the supervision of a woman "of canonical age but not of 73 canonical virtue".
In many places these rooms or huts were at least partial ly underground, perhaps the result of a custom, noted in
Burma and Laos, of going underneath the granary (which is
I- usually on stilts in tropical countries) to spin and weave.
73 Quoted by Gasparini, op. cit., from B. Molz, "Ein Be such bei den Ao-Nagas" in Anthropos IV, 1909, p. 62. 85
In Bulgaria the spinning house or "izba" was partly above
and partly below the ground. Traces of these "webgraben"
have been found in Scandinavia, Iceland, Burgundy, Switzer
land, the Rhineland, Thuringia, northern Italy, Macedonia, i
Ireland and possibly in England.
If the girls were not permitted to receive proposals
of marriage until they had finished their work Gasparini
reminds us that this does not mean that they were not per
mitted to receive proposals. The young men were admitted
and often remained. The girls could not refuse a young
man who presented himself properly. Couples slept together
in the Slavic countries on the stove as was the custom in
those regions until recently. Numerous statements assure us
that the girls kept their virtue intact nonetheless. Gasparini
relates that the Japanese resolved this facet of the question,
very neatly in their myth of the Koiki. The girl spinning
in the " nuro" is frightened by the moon god Susanovo and
involuntarily wounds herself with the shuttle, which ever
since has been a phallic symbol in Japanese literature. The moon is frequently associated with cloth working activities.
Gasparini tells of a Polish riddle about a girl who has
embroidered a flower as big as the whole world without
needle or thread. The answer is, of course, the moon. In 86 i
Herzogovinia a lunar spider supposedly spins a web all one's life and when it gets thick enough to blot out the light of the moon entirely death occurs.
Gasparini notes that because spinning could have so
'many dire consequences it was necessary to regulate it by numerous taboos and laws. In one part of Serbia only the women of sixteen villages were allowed to make cloth and then dnly within the limits of these villages. In Bulgaria spinning could never be done on a Friday after the new moon. In Novgorod there was a patron saint of women who spun, Saint Piatnica, whose name was derived from a Slavic root meaning "to spin". Her icon was placed before doors and protected with a cloth. Gasparini notes variations of this practice in Germany, Austria and northern Italy. Even in New Zealand there were numerous regulations on spinning and weaving: they should never be done after twilight and a piece of cloth should never be left unfinished. Among the
Khai of Burma, the Ilongot of Luzon in the Philippines, and the Tapanga of Sumatra there were so many regulations that the very art of cloth making was threatened by extinction.
Among the Sangir of the Celebes women beat out a special rhythm while making cloth and Gasparini recalls that this rhythmic figure has remained as the basis of their 87
domestic music. In Byelorussia it was noted that men sang while they rested but women sang while they worked. In
Brittany songs were composed to keep women from going to sleep while they spun. Scenes of women singing while work ing on cloth abound in just about every literature from
Livonian folktales to Homer. He notes that both Calypso and
Circe sang while weaving, and Gasparini points out that both were enchantresses albeit of different kinds. Circe wove a miraculous, immortal web. Even Leopardi's Silvia sang while working on cloth. Priscilla was carding wool and spinning when John Alden arrived with the proposal that backfired, although Gasparini probably never read "The Courtship of
Miles Standish". He speculates that the Greek verb meaning
11 sing"— hyphnino— is related to the Old Indian "vabh" mean ing "to weave" which in Vedic is "vaf-" with the significance of "sing".
Sometimes the theme of the songs was the success of the spinning or weaving, but Gasparini says that they were more often love songs. In Russia they could be called ^watch songs"— besednya pesni— but were more generally known as
"lyubnovnya"— love songs.
There is no definite proof that underground workrooms for women existed in Prance, although Gasparini notes traces 88
of them located in Burgundy and just across the Rhine in the Eiffel. There are, however, elements of the prenuptial liberties connected with these rooms and the practices that went with them in Fresnch provincial customs.
Le danze e i canti del lino e della canapa, che sopravivono ancora nelle uaanze della provincia francese, sono un resto de guesto antico cominio femminile, come lo sono le "chansons I. toile."74
7 R Charles Bertram Lewis considers the weaving songs as well as the fountain songs (of which No. XIII is one and pro bably No. X also, although he does not mention it) as having been derived from the Protoevangelium and the Pseudo-Matthew which were popular from the second to the second to the fifth centuries. These show Mary working on cloth at the time of the Annunciation. He compares the situation in
Gaiete and Oriour (No. XIII) with th^-O^d Testament stories of Isaac and Rebekkah and of Jacob and Rachel. He claims the daughters of the great lords no longer wove or spun in the twelfth century.
Howard S. Jordan in "The Old French 'Chansons d'Histoice' 76 as a possible origin of the English Popular Ballad" sees
74-Gasparini, op. cit., p. 458.
750P . cit.
7®Revue de la literature compar great similarity between the chansons de toile and the Danish ballads, both in subject matter and in stanza form. He notes also that the first ballad collections in Denmark were made by noblewomen: . . . which indicates that in that country at that time the ballad was popular with exactly the same class as the chanson d*histoire had been in Prance . . . The style changed; and the French noblewomen so subject to the flux of mode found in the songs of the troubadours a more sophisticated and to them a more pleasing poetry. Alfred Schossig classes the chansons de toile as women's 78 songs by the use Of symbols. The symbols of spinning were the symbols of Ishtar, the goddess of fertility. He sees in the chansons de toile survivals of old Gallo-Roman marriage and courtship customs with the important part played by the woman as due to Celtic influence. The chansons de toile, according to Schossig, project the Magna Mater against the figure of Belenus and their heroines are often in the charac ter of Ishtar. He says that the handling of women and their occupations in them is much older than the twelfth century, and credits the songs with much greater age than has been pro posed heretofore, but not the forms in which we now have them. 77I b i d ., p. 377. 780P . cit., p. 185. 90 The performance of the chansons de toile may be attri buted to women on the basis of arguments taken from an examination of the music itself. The musical notation for five of them has been preserved in the manuscripts, and in most of the others there is space for i,t with the staves drawn indicating that there was at least intention of 79 providing musical notation, and it is not difficult music to understand. It is apparent from its character that it is best suited to women's voices, indeed, some of the fioriture would be the delight. :of a present-day coloratura ' soprano. However, we must approach it with caution. It is very fine music: La musique des aubes et des chansons d'histoire est peut-£tre la plus savante que des troubadours aient compos^e.80 But is it the music that was originally intended for the poems? We cannot answer this question with any finality. The melodies are not all equally complicated. The one for No. X consists of a single phrase repeated for each verse of the couplet with another, more expressive phrase for the refrain. The musical scores for No. XIV and No. VII have ^By, among others, Beck and Garold, op. cit. ®°Jean Beck, op. cit., p. 96. 91 slightly more complicated phrasing for the verses of the stanza, but the phrase assigned to the refrain has already appeared in the stanza. 81 It is music for female voice, but it is doubtful that it would have been composed by or even sung by amateurs as a diversion in private: La musique est d'une rare finesse. Mais quelle science n'a-t-il pas fallu k 1 *auteur pour mettre ces vers en musique, et surtout, pour rendre la douleur du refrain: Et or en ai dol! Croira-t-on que des vocalises comme nous les trouvons sur les mots livres et terres [No. VI] , aient jamais pu £tre execut^es dans un gyn^cee? Des cadences aussi compliqu^es exigeaient de tout autres artistes. C'est de la musique on ne peut plus savante et raffin^e qui exclut non seulment tout origine populaire, mais encore toute popularity. Les seuls modeles desquels on puisse les rapprocher sont encore les modulations des melodies gregoriennes. It does appear that the music was for women*s voices. It must be noted, however, that in the Guillaume de Dole two of the songs are sung by men. It does not seem, however, that they were intended to be sung casually by amateurs to while away the tedium of the day's chores. GyroId says that this indicates that the music was composed later by sophisticated trouv&res, a concept somewhat akin to Paral's theory on the origin of the songs themselves. Gyrold is judging solely ^Gyrold, op. cit. 8 2 Beck, op. cit., p. 104. 92 from the music, and perhaps would imply only that the music was composed at a later date. Even if the originals of the musical scores were known to the scribes who copied them into the manuscripts they may have preferred more 11 up-to- date" settings. Perhaps they did not even know the older scores any longer. Garold furnishes the best argument again st his own theory: the melodies assigned to the songs of Audefroi le B&tard are less complicated than those assigned to the songs generally conceded to be of earlier date. In summing up we may assume that the chansons de toile were probably composed by men poets but for women. It is not necessarily true that they were performed before all female audiences. It is somewhat doubtful that they were sung by women while working at their embroidery in the women's quarters of the castles, and they were certainly not restricted to this use. They do treat themes and subjects pleasing to women and at least some of the material as well as the form came from the old "chansons de femme" which were the common heritage of a number of literatures. Many of the themes and elements of the chansons de toile are those usually associated with women and the feminine psyche and it does not appear likely that the jongleurs could have made use of such intimately feminine material without getting 93 some of their basic concepts from women oi at least from literature destined expressly for feminine consumption, a literature we no longer have. Just how much part women played in the actual composition of the chanson de toile is open to much question. The probability is that they were not composed by women in the form which has come down to us through the manuscripts. As we have them now the songs are not popular in the sense of being composed by the untutored masses; they are the work of skilled artisans. The chanson de toile is definitely an aristocratic medium. Its milieu is the domain of the upper ranks of feu dal society and the problems connected with the type of life led by this class. The problems treated are always those of their women and the outlook is always feminine. The feminine influence, at least in inspiration even if not in composition, is probably connected directly to the rise in the importance of women in the feudal structure during the twelfth century. The songs are probably descended from a popular form, but in the state in which we have them today they are not songs of the people but of the noble classes. They do embody popular material which must have been the common property of all poets of the period. They owe much to the chansons 94 de geste, particularly in the versification. This debt is probably due to the fact that the jongleurs who composed the chansons de toile were also familiar with the chansons de geste and habits acquired from working with the latter carried over to the new genre. The creation of a new type of song was occasioned by the change in the status of women and by a refinement in manners. Just when this occurred is the subject of much controversy and cannot be precisely decided, but in all probability ilt took place in the twelfth century. In the thirteenth Audefroi le B&tard revived the genresand made new or imitation chansons de toile which are clearly distinguishable from the older, anonymous examples. The chanson de toile was undoubtedly never a prolific genre and it has never been revived since the time of Audefroi. CHAPTER III ANALYSIS OF THE CHANSONS DE TOILE I . Argument: Fair Aye is seated at the feet of her mother sewing. Her face is covered with tears; she is beaten morning and evening because she loves a soldier from another land. Refrain: Oh! love from another country you have surpised and fettered my heart. Fragment. Form: Two tercets, assonaheed decasyllables, femin ine endings, same assonances throughout, epic cesura in five out of six lines. Two line refrain, one octosyllable and one decasyllable, masculine endings. II. Argument: Mother and daughter are seated embroider ing. The mother speaks: learn to sew and to spin, it is better that you forget the love of Doon. Refrain: What good love fair Aude had for Doon! Fragment. Form: T w o tercets, assonanced decasyllables, separate assonances, masculine endings, three epic cesuras, 95 96 r single line decasyllabic refrain with masculine endings not rhyming with the stanzas. III. Argument; It is May and the "Franks of France" are coming back from the king's court. Raynaut is in the front rank. He passes by Erembour's house but does not even nod. She, the daughter of the Emperor, is seated at the window sewing. She upbraids Raynaut for not speaking. He accuses her of forgetting him and loving another. She offers to swear on the saints' relics to a hundred maidens and thirty ladies that she has loved no other. Count Raynaut mounts the steps: there is none so handsome in any land. When he sees Brembour he begins to cry. They go up into the tower, sit on the bed, and begin again their first loves. Refrain: Hey, Raynaut, my love! Form: Six stanzas of five lines with one line lack ing in the last stanza. Assonanced decayllables, one assonance for the first three which is repeated in the last. The other two stanzas have separate assonances. Masculine endings, epic cesuras in twelve out of twenty-nine lines, single line five- syllable refrain with independent rhyme. 97 IV. Argument; Fair Aiglentine is sewing in the royal chamber before her mother, but she does not sew as she should because love is troubling her. She pricks her finger and her mother notices this. Her mother asks her to take off her surcoat but she refuses pleading the cold as an excuse. Her mother notices that she is growing pale and heavy and asks what the trouble is. She replies that she cannot deny it, she has loved a noble soldier, brave Henri, and begs her mother to have pity on her if she (the mother) has ever loved. The mother wishes to know if Henri, will marry her. Aiglentine replies that she does not know since she has never asked him. Her mother tells her to go at once and ask him. Aiglentine goes to Henri’s house where she finds him lying on the bed. She asks him and he replies that nothing would give him more joy. He has twenty knights mount and takes her off into his country where he marries her and makes her a rich countess. Refrain: Now hear how fair Aiglentine proceeded. After the last stanza this becomes: Count Henri had great joy when he had fair Aiglentine. Form: Eight stanzas varying from three to six lines: two tercets, four quatrains and two sextains. 98 Assonanced decasyllables, different assonances in each stanza. Some repetition of assonances but no discernible pattern. The last assonance is only true without nasalization. Feminine endings in the first stanza, masculine in all the others. Epic cesura in fifteen lines, possible epic eefeuta in three others, out of thirty-three. Two line refrain consisting of a tetrasyllable and a decasyllable. This rhythmic pattern is maintained at the end of the last stanza even though the refrain has been changed. V. Argument: Fair Doette is sitting at the window reading a book but her heart is not in it. She keeps thinking of her lover Doon who has gone off to fight in the tournaments in another land. A squire dis mounts at the stoop. Fair Doette races down the stairs; she does not expect bad news. She asks him where her lord is. He is so sad that he weeps from pity. Doette faints. She recovers and even though her heart is heavy she seeks news of her lord. The squire tells her that he has been killed in the tournament. Doette begins her mourning. She 99 i i addresses Count Do who was so noble that for love of him she will put on the hair shirt and no longer wear fine clothing. For him she will raise an abbey and those who were false in love will not be able to cross the threshold. The abbey is built and all those who wish to enter it must know the sorrows of love. Refrain: And now I am sad because of it. For the last three stanzas there is added: For you I shall become a nun in Saint Paul's church. Form: Eight quatrains of assonanced decasyllables, three stanzas have masculine endings, five feminine. The assonances are different; there is some repetition but no pattern. Epic cesura in seventeen out of thirty-two lines. One line, five syllable refrain for the first five stanzas. An alexandrine is added to the last three refrains. VI. Argument: Fair Doe is sitting in the wind under the hawthorne waiting for Doon. She bewails and regrets so much that he is so slow in coming. He (or the hawthorne) is covered with flowers. Her friends weep for her, but he does not wish to come to her. Refrain: God! what a liege you have in Doon! 100 What a baron! I shall never love lest it be Doon. Fragment. Form: One quatrain and one tercet of assonanced octosyllables. Masciiline endings. Different assonances in each stanza. No epic cesura. The first line may contain one possibly, but the reading is unlikely; the name Doe was probably pronounced in one syllable with a silent e, but since it is not repeated verification is impossible. Three line refrain in octosyllables, rhymed and with a very intricate pattern of coupes. Cesura after the fourth syllable. VII. Argument: Fair Yolanz is sitting in her room sewing on a robe which she wishes to give to her lover. Sighing, she sings the refrain. She apostrophizes her lover begging him to have pity on her and sinks to the ground. At this moment her lover enters. She sees him and lowers her chin. He accuses her of having forgotten him. She hears this and laughs. With a sigh she extends her arms and begins to em brace him. She tells him that she does not know how to flatter but that she loves him and wishes to sleep 101 in his arms. He takes her in his arms, stretches^ her out on the bed and they make love. Refrain; God, the name of love is so sweet I never expected to feel pain because of it. gorm: Six quatrains, assonanced decasyllables, masculine endings throughout, one of them repeated. Two epic cesuras and one lyric cesura. Two line refrain in octosyllables with masculine rhymes. VIII. Argument: Fair Yolanz is sitting in her room sewing. Her cruel mother is upbraiding her, but she says that as her mother she must do so. Yolanz feigns not to know why; is it because of her sewing or does she sleep too much? It is not any of these things, it is because she talks with Count Mahi too much and her husband is pained because of this. > The mother asks her not to do it any more. Yolanz replies that even if her husband and all his relatives were to beg her, and no matter how much it pains her husband, she will not stop loving Count Mahi. Her mother warns her to be careful. Refrain; I am scolding you because of it, fair Yolanz. This is changed after the last stanza to voice the mother's warning. 102 Form: Six quatrains, assonanced octosyllables, the first feminine and all the others masculine endings. Varied assonances. No epic cesura. One line octo- syllablic refrain with masculine ending. The metric system and assonance of the refrain is kept when it is changed for the last stanza. IX. Argument: Yzabel is seated at the top of the tower leaning over the parapet crying because she is married to a foreigner and her friends will not try to help her. She was the daughter of an emperor and a "vilain" is now her lord. Her lady-in-waiting asks her why she is crying and why she does not love. She replies that if she knew a noble knight who was renowned in arms she would. The lady-in-waiting replies that she knows such a knight who would love her whether or no. Refrain: Oh, my love! because of these evil slanderers I am far from my country. Form: Six tercets of assonanced decyllables, all masculine endings, varied assonances. The last three tercets have the same assonance. Epic cesura in nine out of eighteen lines. Two line refrain, one trisyllable and one -decasyllable, assonanced. 103 X. Argument: In a garden by a fountain of clear water and white sand a king's daughter is seated sighing. Her father has given her to an old man who keeps her locked up. Her wicked husband hears her, comes into the garden and beats her until she is nearly dead. He is then frightened because he is a vassal of her father. On regaining consciousness she prays God that her lover will come before evening. God hears her plea and her lover comes and comforts her under the leafy bough. Refrain: Ay, Count Guy, my love! Your love has taken from me all solacesand laughter! Form: Six quatrains, rhymed decasyllables, all feminine, varied rhymes, but some of the rhymes are repeated. Three epic cesuras in twenty-four lines. Two line refrain with masculine rhymes, one six syllable line and one decasyllable. XI. Argument: Fair Eurlaus is seated alone, she can neither eat nor drink nor sleep. She reasons with herself because she does not dare speak of it to her love, Renaut. Refrain: Often she cries aloud, "Lord, will I ever see my dear love Renaut again?" Fragment. 104 Form; One quatrain of rhymed decasyllables, epic cesura in two out of the four lines. Two line re frain, one four syllable line and one alexandrine, rhymed. XII. Argument: Easter comes in April and the fields are green again. Rivers flow gently again and birds sing. He who is in love should go there. Aigline and Count Guy love each other. A festival is being prepared at a nearby castle. Damsels and knights are going there. Aigline goes there in a robe of scarlet silk with a train that drags two ells over the fields. Refrain; Guy loves Aigline, Aigline loves Guy. Fragment. Form; The first stanza has seven lines and the second nine. Assonanced decasyllables, varied, mas culine endings. Nine epic cesuras in sixteen lines. Single line, decasyllabic refrain with its own epic cesura. XIII. Argument; On Saturday evening when the week is draw ing to a close Gaiete and Oriour go to bathe in the fountain. Young squire Gerairs is returning from 105 tournament practice. He chooses Gaiete and embraces her. She tells Oriour to go back to the town, she will remain with Gerairs who loves her. Oriour is sad because she is leaving her sister in the valley. Young squire Gerairs takes Gaiete to his country and marries her. Refrain; The breeze is blowing and the branches flutter, those who love each other sweetly sleep. Form; Six tercets, assonanced decasyllables, femin ine endings for the first five and masculine for the sixth. Four epic cesuras out of eighteen lines. Assonances are repeated and there may be a pattern of two and two. Two line refrain, six syllable feminine assonance. XIV. Argument: Oriolanz on the top of the tower is sigh ing and regretting her love, Helier. Evil slander ers have taken him away from her. She remembers their embraces and is tired of living. She feels that she drove him away even more than the slanderers when she refused him her love. She regrets it and wishes to embrace him while sleeping; on waking she begins to yearn again when she does not find him 106 there. She prays to God for advice but there are so many obstacles. In the meantime Helier hhs left the court and on arriving hears a part of her lament. He is pleased. She embraces him and tells him that in spite of the slanderers they are to gether and let them say what they wish. The last stanza is a rather strange envoi in which the poet wandering by the seaside commends to God "fair Aelis". Refrain: God, how slowly comes happiness to one who longs for it. Form: Niie stanzas of five octosyllabic lines, with the same rhyme for the first five, a second rhyme for the sixth, a third rhyme for the seventh and ninth, and the eighth stanza is assonance similar to the last rhyme. All endings masculine. Varied cesuras. Two line refrain consisting of rhymed feminine octosyllables. XV. Argument: Fair Amelot is alone spinning in her room. She begins to sing and in her song names her lover. Her mother hears her. She loves Garin truly and will have no one else for her husband. She will kill herself or go astray if she cannot have Garin. If 107 God will have pity on her and give her Garin all this will be avoided. Her mother begs her to take Duke Girart or Count Henri, but she will not. Taking a husband is a serious thing and if she did not love him it would not work out. Her mother re minds her that her father will be angered. Arnelot begs her not to torture her and drive her away. She faints in her mother's arms. Her mother takes pity on her and promises her that she shall have Garin for her husband. She sends for him, gives him silver and gold and they are married with the per mission of the father, Lancelin. Refrain; God give me Garin, my sweet love, for a husband. Changed after the last stanza to: Soon Amelot had Garin her love. Form; Twelve quatrains of decasyllables, assonanced, but at least nine of these are good rhymes as well. Varied assonances. All masculine endings. One epic cesura and several lyric cesuras. Two line refrain, one octosyllable and one tetrasyllable, masculine rhymes. The metric system and rhyme of the refrain are retained even after it is changed. 108 XVI. Argument: Argentine marries Count Guy. After a happy marriage and five sons he turns against her because he loves her maid Sabine better. The Count tells Sabine of his love for her but she does not wish to become a concubine. He promises her any thing and she gives in. Argentine reproaches him for shaming her and he drives her out of the country. She leaves sorrowing. After much wandering she comes to the Emperor's court in Germany, where the Empress takes her into her service. She is so well liked that she becomes an important figure at the court and her sons become knights of great valor and renown, of great service to the Emperor. Argentine almost faints when she sees her sons. After many festi vities they set out together for their country. Sabine is banished and there is no discord or evil any more. Refrain: One who has a bad marriage often has a broken heart. Form: Eighteen five line stanzas in alexandrines, rhymed with all feminine rhymes which are varied. There are some epic cesuras. Two line refrain is rhymed octosyllables. 109 1 XVII. Argument: Beatris is weeping as she sews. She prays God to advise her because hhe is pregnant of Hugo and she is to marry Duke Henri. She cannot appear before the Duke and she will not let any man touch her' except Hugo. She regrets the day she met Hugo because now she will lose her honor and her esteem. A squire hears her and out of friendship offers to tell Hugo of her plight. She will wait for him in the garden. The squire finds Hugo who almost faints when he hears about Beatris. He tells the squire to say to Beatris that if she wants him to marry her she should-:wait in the garden. He is delighted to know that she is marrying him for love. He takes fifty knights and sets out, getting to the garden at vespers. He takes her by the hand and gives thanks to God. She begs him to take her away and after embracing they go. He takes her to his palace and announces their marriage to the assembled crowd. Duke Henri hears of it and goes to Beatris* father*s house threatening to have Hugo?s head cut off. The father, and the mother calm him down and point out that he will never have the love of Beatris. The Duke is very sad, returns home and dies, while Hugo is happy 110 in his love. Refrain: Very savory is the evil one takes for loyal true love. Form: Twelve stanzas of five lines and four of six, all in alexandrines, rhymed, masculine endings, varied rhymes. Five epic cesuras in the four last stanzas. Two line refrain is rhymed octosyllables with mas culine endings. XVIII. Argument: Fair Ysabiau loves Gerard and he loves her but they had been prudent in their love. Her parents took her away from him and married her again st her will to a lowly vassal. When Gerard hears of it he complains to the lady who tells him not to be envious of that for which he never asked. She tells him to go away and since he finds her hard and un yielding he goes off on a Crusade. When he is re- turhing he sends his squire Denis ahead to speak to the lady for him. He finds her in the garden dressed up and blushing. When she hears Gerard speak she embraces him and they both faint. Her husband sees them and thinks they are dead. He feels so bad about it he drops dead. When the couple revive they bury the husband and Gerard marries Ysabiau. Ill Refrain; And Gerard waits for joy. Changed at the end to; Now Gerard has joy. Form; Thirteen stanzas of five lines of three rhymed decasyllables and two rhymed octosyllables. One feminine rhyme for the first three lines of each stanza and one masculine rhyme for the last two. No epic cesura. Four lyric cesuras. One line re frain of six syllables, masculine rhyme. XIX. Argument; Fair Ydoine is sitting in her father's garden bemoaning her fate. She is in torment be cause of her love for Count Garsile. A war started by her father has been raging and many people have been killed. Then when peace was declared she lost her heart to Count Garsile. She can think of nothing except him, his prowess, and his beauty. He joins her but she tells him her parents will not let them marry. She is taken before her father who beats her and shuts her up in a tower. She remains there for three years weeping all the time but her heart does not change. She cries out to her beloved that she is imprisoned because of his love and falls down, as if dead. Her father hears her cry, rushes into the 112 tower and takes her into his arms. He does not wish her to die. Then the Queen joins him. They see that this love is destroying their daughter. Her father tries to get her to marry someone of high lineage, but she will have no one but Garsile. Then the King declares a tournament and has the news spread. Count Garsile comes with a rich company. She g;i.ves him her sleeve as a token. Garsile wins the tournament, the King gives him his daughter and they go off to his country loving each other dearly. Refrain; Ay Lord! He who has sorrow and pain from love should have joy next. Form; Twenty-five stanzas of five lines, but a line is apparently missing from two of them even though there is nothing notably missing from the context. The lines are twelve syllables long, seemingly intended to be alexandrines. The stanzas are rhymed and the rhymes are all feminine. They are varied, but there is some repetition. No epic or lyric cesuras. Two line refrain, feminine endings, rhymed, one decasyllable and one octosyllable. 113 XX. Argument: Pair Emmelos is in the garden weeping for Guy. Her husband beats her for it, but she cannot change her heart. She appeals to her absent lover. Never has a king's daughter fallen so low. Her husband is touched but only beats her more. Count Guy hears her and asks if someone has been beating her because of him. She says that it does not hurt as much when she thinks of him. The Count draws his sword and kills the Duke, her husband, and takes Emmelos away to his country where they love each other with all their hearts. Refrain; And Guy loves Emmelos in faith. Form: Sixteen five line stanzas, three decasyllables and two octosyllables, rhymed, with similar but not identical rhymes which are used throughout the poem. The refrain repeats the rhyme of the last two lines of the stanza. The rhyme is feminine in the deca syllables and masculine in the octosyllables and the refrain. Two lyric cesuras, no epic cesura. One line refrain, octosyllabic. 114 A. Salient Characteristics 1. Love. The above analysis of the chansons de toile will give us an overall look at their subject matter and content. The most striking fact is that they always treat the subject of love. No other seemed fitting for the chansons de toile. and everything else is secondary to it. The love is of an earthy nature. There is nothing ethereal about it. It is physical and the idea is to get the two lovers together so that they may indulge in sexual inter course. In several of the chansons de toile this is made plain. Sentimentally: Assis se sont soz une ante ramee la ot d*amors mainte larme plor^e or with a delicate touch but definite intention: Si s'est assis en .1. lit point a flors, dejoste lui se siet bele Erembors. Lors recommencent lor premieres amors.2 or plain to the point of risking pornography: Li siens amis entre ses braz la prent, en un biau lit s*asient seulement: bele Yolanz lo baise estroitement a tor francois en mi lo lit estent.3 ^■No. X, 1. 33-34. 2No. Ill, 1. 27-29. 3No . VII, 1. 31-34. 115 The lovers long for each other, but their longing is for physical contact. This, too, may be most delicate: La bele Doe siet au vent, sous l*aubespin Doon atent; plaint et regrete tant forment par son ami qui si vient lent.4 or more explicit: Amis, la nuit en mon couchier, en dormant, vos cuit embracier? et qant g*i fail au resveillier, nule riens ne m'i puet aidier. Lors me reprent au souhaidier.^ Marriage may or may not be involved. This may be evoked gently: lor droit chemin ont pris vers la citeit? tantost com il i vint, l'ait espouseit.® or it may be quite bourgeois in outlook: si enporta la bele en son pals et l*espousa, riche contesse en fist.7 It may, despite all the passion involved, be partially arranged by the parents: La meire errant mandat lou prou Gariny tant li donat et argent et or fin, c'ansamble mist et l*amie et l'amin per lou congeit son signor Lancelin.® 4No . VI, 1. 1-4. 5No . XIV, 1. 21-26. 6No . XIII, 1. 27-28. 7No . IV, 1. 47-48. 8No . XV, 1. 67-70. 116 or it may not even be discussed in the denoument: malgr£ losengeors chaitis, estes vos or de moi saisiz. Or parleront a lor devis, et nos ferons toz noz plaisirs.9 Marriage, in fact, is not really a part of this love. When marriage is a part of their life it comes after the fact. In several of the songs the heroine is married, but she is a "mal marine". The husband is a "vilain" and her object is to get away from him. In No. IX Yzabel does not even have a lover, but she longs for one. And when her lady-in- waiting asks her: - Ne degniez vos ameir? she replies promptly that she would gladly love someone, but not her husband. The lady-in-waiting then suggests a lover. An interpretation which I have not found proposed, but which would give this song a sense of completion and much more appeal is that this knight is Yzabel*s lover back in her own country whom she left when her parents married her to the "estrainge gent", and that her lady-in-waiting is only reminding her of him. However, nothing in the song compels us to accept this interpretation. 9No . XIV, 1. 51-54. l^Line 18. 117 One possible exception to the unhappiness of marriage may be No. V. It is possible that Doette and Doon are married, even though he is referred to in the poem as "son ami". With thfe separation between marriage and love that exists in these songs it seems logical that the poet would not refer to him as her husband but as her lover if she loved him. Again this interpretation is not imposed by the text; nothing therein tells us that they are married. She acts like a widow after his death, but this may well be only be cause of the depth of her love. It might also be noted that in No. XVI Argentine is pictured as being idyllically happy with Count Guy before Sabine comes into the picture. This chanson de toile is one of Audefroi le B^tard*s, and they are later and repre sent a more artificial treatment than the original, anonymous ones. In No. XX, also by Audefroi le Bcttard, the husband is a "mal mari" but by no means a "vilain"; he is a duke. The love that all these ladies bear for their lovers is intense and all consuming. In this Audefroi has faithfully followed the earlier models. They have no object other than the pursuit of their love and are in most cases successful. It is definitely the fatal passion and there is never a 118 thought of being able to deter it. One of Audefroi*s, imitation though it may be, is a good example of this. Ysabiaus has married someone else (No. XVIII), but she does not even think of ceasing to love Gerart. She wishes to remain faithful to her husband so she sends Gerart off on a Crusade. When he returns, by this time a hero, there is no resisting, of course. Erembor, who is the daughter of an Emperor (No. Ill), does not hesitate to pursue her lover and offer on her own to justify herself before his un warranted suspicions. She does not upbraid him for having suspected her? her love is too powerful for that. Doette (No. V) has no thought of living when she learns that Doon is dead. In this she resembles the "belle Aude" of the Chanson de Roland whose only function is to drop dead when she learns that her lover is no longer living. This love has excited Jeanroy, perhaps a bit too much: ... il est ardent, emport£, il exclut tout autre sentiment, ne connalt ni frein, ni contrepoids; il s’exprime avec la plus naive, la plus inconsciente erudite ... Cet amour, en effet, est bien l*amour imp^rieux et foudroyant, 1*amour maladif qui seul a 4 t 4 connu des auteurs de chansons de geste; il envahit tout 1* £tre, il rend Stranger k tout ce qui n'est pas lui ...■*•■*• •^Oriqines, op. cit., p. 219, 220. 119 Such effulgent statements could not fail to elicit shocked denials. Lionel J. Friedman has done just such in an article in the Modern Language Quarterly: Jeanroy has greatly overstated the case. No character in a song is ever reduced to the point of near death, as so frequently happens to the one i who suffers from love in a narrative romance; in this instance, the love found in the chansons de toile is much less foudroyant and invasive than that found in the narrative romance. Lumping all the chansons de toile together, he can only enumerate seven such signs. No single character ever demonstrates more than two of them. This is extremely restrained compared to the elaborate symptomology of the narrative romances.^ On much firmer ground Friedman attacks the implication that "1*amour maladif" was known only to the writers of the chansons de geste: Since tradition holds that love is absent from the chansons de geste, we are surprised to hear Jeanroy speak of love as a thunderbolt being known only to the authors of geste.-*-3 He is correct in thinking that love is not of prime importance in the chanson de geste. It is never a motivating force. Not only do the heroes not fight their battles because of it, they do not even let it deter them: 12No . XXIV, March 1963, p. 105. 13Ibid., p. 104. 120 Que la trompette sonne, il remontera h. cheval, sans m£me que son Spouse d*un jour essaie de le retenir, pour courir h. des victoires nouvelles . ,.14 However, love is not completely absent from the chanson de geste. Even Roland does have a fiancee, though he does not seem to remember it. This love is a linear, immobile fact. It exists and there is nothing to be done about it. It is far more 11 imp^rieux" than 11 foudroyant" . And it is evidenced almost always in the woman. The hero accepts love but shows no reaction to it. That would be a weakness, and the hero of the chanson de geste is permitted no weaknesses. The woman, on the other hand, is no heroine, she is simply a woman. She may have all the weaknesses she wishes. In fact, her great strength is shown when she dies. Without the hero she has no reason to live. One is reminded of the remark that Madame Rachel, who played tragic queens long after they had ceased to be popular otherwise, is supposed (quite apocryphally, no doubt) to have made: "They never applaud unless I die!". It is probably this imperious aspect of love that Jeanroy had in mind. In this respect it is similar in the 14Jeanroy, Origines, op. cit., p. 229. 121 chansons de toile and in the chansons de geste. It is a one dimensional thing. It must be pursued to the end and when that end is reached, or when it becomes evident that it is unattainable there is no more reason for existence: What is completely different in the two genres is the focus. The chanson de geste is the story of deeds. These deeds are performed by the hero. The spotlight is always on him; the woman lurks in the shadows and only shows up when he has died and she is seen deteriorating for lack of her only reason for being: the hero. On the other hand, the chanson de toile is a story of love. As long as there is love there is reason for the story, whether the love be reciprocal or unilateral. The focus is on the woman. The male, though not quite as unimportant as the female in the chanson de geste, is definitely secondary. To this woman the love is far more important than it was to the hero of the geste— or to the author of the epic, who was not parti cularly concerned with that angle of the story. It is still "imp^rieux", but it is also "foudroyant" to the woman and it is the woman with whom we are concerned now. It is the same love; we are just looking at it from the other side. Another significant difference lies in the very nature of the two genres. The chanson de geste is a long narrative 122 poem, replete with plots and subplots, with a multitude of characters, many scenes, changes of locale, and numerous things the author must tell us. Love is not the most im portant of these and it tends to get lost. The chanson de toile is a dramatic vignette. It is concerned with a single incident and in that incident love is the most important thing. The same love, brought into the foreground and accented, shows up quite differently. Furthermore, the chanson de toile is compressed and shorn of almost all de tail. If the heroines do not show as many symptoms of love it is quite possibly because the author did not stop to enumerate them. He does not have the length of the chanson de geste— or for that matter the narrative romance— with 15 which Friedman seems to confuse it— in which to indulge himself. 2. Woman. And what is the position of the woman in all this erotic adventuring? Despite the strength of will shown by most of the heroines in the chanson de toile they are still chattels in a feudal society. They are at the complete disposal of their superiors, their parents or their 150p. cit. lovers. They are married against their wills, abandoned with impunity by their lovers, beaten by their husbands or families. This is probably the same position held by the women of the chansons de geste. It is difficult to say a great deal about the women in the chanson de geste and their position since the emphasis is always on the male and women appear almost exclusively as appendages. Perhaps they would have held a more elevated position even then if the authors of the gestes had cared to bring it out. It is difficult even to remember them: Aalais, the mother of Raoul de Cambrai, Guibourg, the wife of Guillaume d'Orange, Countess Bertha in Girard de Rousilldn, the mother of the "Quatre fils Aymon", and poor Aude in the Chanson de Roland. in the chanson de toile women have at least at tained notice, but they are still not in control of society, and hardly of themselves. Myrrha Lot-Borodine expresses it, speaking first of the women of the chansons de geste: Dans un pareil milieu, avec de telles natures, la femme en tant que femme n'a rien ci faire, elle ne peut que subir avec resignation son £troit et dur destin, lui arrachant quelques lambeaux d'un bonheur qu'elle aura infiniment de peine ct sauvegarder. De m6me, dans les chansons dites de. toile, ces perles •^1 am indebted for this list to Mme. Myrrha Lot- Borodine, Ite 1'amour profane a l1amour sacre, (Paris y Nizet, 196l)u p. 14 (note 2). 124 de la poesie pr£-courtoise, 1'heroine fr^missante, impetueuse, s'Glance au devant de la passion: cette primitive ne connalt ni l*art difficile d'attendre, ni celui, plus d^licat encore, de se faire desirer.-*-7 Thus we see that the heroines of the chansons de toile are still far from emancipated and still quite unsophisticat ed. They have made progress in two ways, however. First we are shown women exercising their wills. These heroines may be unable to resist their passion, but they have the will to pursue it. They do not submit humbly and without feeling. We see a discernible line of thought mounting from the heroines who accept the inalterability of their positions to those who take matters into their own hands and at least work out a happy issue from their situations. This is continued with increased vigor in the work of Audefroi le Bcbtard. perhaps its apogee is reached not in those heroines who rebel, such as Yolanz in No. VIII, nor in Ydoine who suffers tortures but refuses to give up her Garsile (No. XIX), but in Ysabiaus the "pucele bien aprise" (No. XVIII) who is in charge of the situation and proves able to handle both her husband and'her lover to her own satisfaction. If woman has gained nothing else in the 17Ibid., p. 14. 125 chansons de toile she has at least gained the right to be and the right to be considered; There is an interest in whether she will be happy or not. It is recognized, also, that she may play a part in that happiness. Belle Doette (No. V), retired within the walls of her abbey, has made her own decision to be there. Gaiete may go off with young Gerart (No. XIII) without much apparent consideration and seemingly only because he has chosen her— because he likes her: "ke bien me priset", 1. 13; not because she likes him— but she, too, has made her decision, however weak we may think her reasons for making it. The heroine of the chanson de toile has made progress "en tant que femme". Does this reflect a change in the manners and attitudes of society toward women? Probably, but we must guard again st accepting it unreservedly. In the first place, poetry is not always a faithful mirror of the manners of its time. The chansons de toile are lyric, not didactic poems and though they have a narrative elemfent they are not chronicles. Also, they must have been contemporary with at least the later chansons de geste. More indicative of a change in the attitude toward women than the character of the heroines is the fact that the chansons de toile were written at all. We have seen that they were not composed for an audience of 126 women exclusively. But that songs would be written'for a feminine audience, and that men would enjoy hearing songs in which the principal roles were given to women shows progress in the recognition of the sex as human beings. The next step would, of course, be courtly love and the idealization of woman. Did courtly love have any in fluence on the chansons de toile and their conception of woman? It undoubtedly had some. A few traces of it appear. The chansons de toile were written at a time when courtly love had not yet completely taken over the literature of northern France— even if we accept Faral's theory that they were written just prior to their appearance in the romans. In this case, of course, the poet was trying to ignore courtly love even if he knew about it. It is not logical, however, to assume that the poets and jongleurs of northern France knew nothing at all about the literary production south of the Loire until the moment they began to imitate it slavishly. Whatever the date of the composition of the vari- - ous chansons de toile, they must have been written at a time when jongleurs had some knowledge of courtly love and the position it gave woman, but when it had not yet crowded everything else out of the repertoire. Oriolanz (No. XIV) uses some of its vocabulary: "felon et losengier", (1. 5), 127 11 losengeors chaitis" (1. 51), and the situation (lovers separated by evil slanderers) is quite close to one of the stock points of departure for courtly poetry. No. XVIII, one of Audefroi's, also shows possible courtly influences when Gerart prefers to worship Ysabiaus from afar at first. The courtly influence is overcome in the end and they re turn to a much more normal situation. Neither Oriolanz nor Ysabiaus are Provencal "mi dons", however. If anything, Ysabiaus ridicules the whole idea of the "amor de lonh": - Amis Gerart, n'aies ja convoitise de ce voloir dont ainc ne fuit requise;^® The women of the chansons de toile have become women, but they are not yet idols. 3. The milieu. If the women of the chansons de toile have become human, they have not relinquished the high plane of social existence enjoyed by their sisters in the chansons de geste. They are the daughters of kings (Nos. X, XIX, and XX), of emperors (Nos. Ill and IX), and a number of other fathers whose exact rank is not indicated but whose position is obviously at the top of the social ladder of the time. They are sought in marriage by count?, dukes, or "chivaliers". l8No. XVIII, 1. 20. 128 They are aware of their rank and even a little snobbish about it. Yzabel (No. IX) is a "mal mariee" but there is no in dication of cruelty on the part of her husband. What she really regrets iss 19 ... on ait fait d'un vilain mon signor - When overcome by love they may forget their "amour propre", like Erembor (No. Ill) but they remember their social position. In keeping with this position the entire atmosphere is aristocratic and wealthy. Despite the economy of detail, the panoply and display of the upper classes of feudal life is generally in the background. Tournaments are frequently ' mentioned. Doon (No. V) is killed in one. The preparations for the tournament at Castle Beauclair take up the whole second stanza of No. XII, though it is only a fragment and there is undoubtedly more that we no longer have. Young Gerart (No. XIII) has been practicing for a tournament. Ydoine (No. XIX) becomes the prize in one. If there is not a tournament in No. XVI there is at least a two week feast. There is frequentalion of the courts. Raynaut (No. Ill) is returning from one. Argentine (No. XVI) has great success 19No . IX. 129 at the Emperor's court. If Hugo does not take Beatris to the court (No. XVIII) he at least takes her to the palace where there is a great assembly (1. 80). There are retainers. Henri (No. IV) has twenty of them mount at once— and they are "chevaliers". A squire comes to tell Doette (No. V) that Doon has been killed. Yzabel (No. IX) has her lady-in- waiting. Argentine (No. XVI) becomes head of all the re tainers of the Empress. A sympathetic squire helps Beatris (No. XVII) out of her difficulty and Count Hugo has fifty knights accompany him when he comes to rescue her. If cloth ing is mentioned at all it is rich and elegant. There is, of course, Aigline's famous train which drags two ells on the grass. She wears it with a "bliaut" of red silk taffeta. Aiglentine has a surcoat (No. IV), though we have no des cription of it at all. Ysabiaus (No. XVIII) is dressed elegantly to receive Gerart on his return from the Crusades. Emmelot (Na XX) is even beaten through silken robes. Yet more often we have no mention of what they were wearing. The materials with which they are working are, however, rich. Fair Aye (No. I) has an English coverlet on her knees. Aude and her mother (No. II) are sifting at their embroidery of i gold and are working at it. Aiglentine (No. IV) i& sewing on a shirt of undetermined material, but she is doing it in 13 O' the royal bedchamber. Yolanz (No. VII) is making her lover a robe of fine silk serge. Doette (No. V) in her grief re nounces fine furs of "vair" (a form of squirrel fur). Yolanz (No. VIII) is sewing on a coverlet with gold and silk threads. There is exchange of money, seemingly large sums. Garin (No. XV) receives both silver and fine gold as a dowry along with Amelot. When Argentine (No. XVI) leaves the Emperor's court the Empress gives her two donkeys laden with fine gold, and the Emperor then does likewise. Everything about them smacks of the well-to-do upper classes. 4. Setting. The settings bear out the aristrocratic motif more than anything else. Practically all of the chansons de toile are laid in castles or in the gardens surrounding them. Aiglentine (No. IV) sews in the royal bedchamber, as we have just seen. Yolanz (No. VII) is in her own room sewing. Doette (No. V) is sitting by her window, from which she can see the squire getting off his horse at the stoop before the hall. Yolanz (No. VIII) is in a quiet room sewing. Yzabel (No. IX) is on top of a tall tower with a crenellated parapet. Amelot (No. XV) is alone in her own room. Argentine (No. XVI) moves from castle to castle. Raynaut passes by the tower of Erembor's father's house 131 (No. III). Ydoine is imprisoned in a high tower (No. XIX). And Beatris (No. XVII) is seated in a golden chambet. All in one way or another are the appendages of castles or wealthy homes. Outside it is almost the same thing. Doe (No. VI) waits under the hawthorne bush. Aigline's surroundings (No. XII) are not specific but there is mention of spring and birds and flowers and a castle where festivities are in progress. The "fille a roi" in No. X is waiting in a garden by a fountain. Gaiete and Oriour (No. XIII) go to bathe in the fountain. Ysabiaus (No. XVIII) goes into the garden to gather flowers while waiting for Gerart to return from the Crusade. Beatris (No. XVII) does the same while waiting for Hugon. Ydoine sits in her father's garden (No. XIX) under the olive tree. Emmelot (No. XX) does not say what kind of a tree it is, but the gress is green under it. in side and out the locale seems always to be the upper-class feudal dwelling. Several things are noteworthy about these settings. First it should be noted that we form our picture of the locale from a very small detail. The chanson de toile is a little gem of economy in this respect. The poet wastes no time on lengthy or detailed descriptions. Sometimes the 132 setting is not given at all. In No. XI we only know that Euriaus is shut up alone. Aye (No. I) is seated at the feet of her evil mother, where we do not know. Rarely ever does the description of the setting go on for more than two lines, sometimes only one. Even the rather lengthy songs of Audefroi le Bcfctard follow this principle. The longest of all the chansons de toile, the story of fair ydoine (No. XIX), has only a line and a half giving the setting. The action begins immediately— in this case in the middle of the second line. An apparent exception is No. XII where six lines are given to description and the action only begins in the last line of the first stanza. However, this is only a fragment and we have no idea how long the whole poem was. It differs in many respects from the others and is 20 sometimes not considered a chanson de toxle at all. It is not so designated in the Guillaume de Dole, where it is sung by the nephew of the Bishop of Liege, and is one of a group of three sung at the same time all dealing with springtime, joy, and birds. It was undoubtedly chosen expressly because of this description. An action seems to begin in the second stanza, but the singer was interrupted at that point and we \ 20 cf. Joly, op. cit., p. 57. 133 shall never know what was going to happen. Only in one other of the chansons de toile does the setting receive even a i full line of description. In No. X the fountain beside which the king's daughter is sitting has clear waves and vhite sands. That is the lengthiest description we have other than the one noted above. Generally an adjective or a phrase suffices. It is a "roial chamberine" (No. IV), a "chambre koie" (No. VIII), or a "chambre a or" (No. XVII). The tower is simply tall (No. IX). Oriolanz' terrace is "haut" (No. XIV). The question of spinning of working with the needle again presents itself in this connection. In how many of the chansons de toile is needlework actually a part of the setting? In eight out of the twenty. Whereas this is not a majority, it is a very significant portion (40%). It should also be noted that seven of these eight are the older, anonymous songs. So, if we eliminate those of Audefroi le Bcttard as imitations, the percentage rises to 47%. Also in 1 several cases the heroines, while not actually working with the needle, are engaged in intimate feminine occupations. Doette is reading a book (No. V). Amelot is singing (No. XV) ✓ and several of them are just sitting, weeping, sighing or displaying other signs of being in love. We call them 134 chansons de toile because, as has been pointed out, Gerbert de Montreuil and Henri d'Andeli, called them that. But it does appear that needlework figures in a very significant I number of the settings. On the other hand, it rarely enters into the action. It is mentioned in No. II but is not really part of the action. Yolanz in No. VII is sewing a robe for her lover, but we do not even know if she ever finishes it, much? less whether he receives it or not. The other Yolanz (No. VIII) is sewing on a coverlet, but our 1 attention is immediatdy taken away from this coverlet and never returns to it. We are not even quite sure that Erembor (No. Ill) is sewing on her coverlet? all we know is that she holds it on her knees. We do not know what Beatris (No. XVII) is sewing. The only case in which the needlework enters into the narrative is Aiglentine (No. IV) who pricks her finger and sets off the chain of events that lead up to her becoming a rich countess. i We undoubtedly do not have the complete production of the chansons de toile. It was probably never a prolific genre. The limitations of the subject matter are such that one could not embroider on it indefinitely. More important is the fact that very few references have been found to t 135 chansons de toile, identified as such, that are not included in the known corpus. Of course, remembering the paucity of manuscripts which have survived from the period of their popularity, we cannot take the liberty of assuming that there were no others. Nor can we assume that there was a great profusion of chansons de toile, all of which except the ones we have, escaped attention. If we could examine the genre “ in its entirely we might find a larger portion of them dealing directly with needlework and tapestry. Perhaps this is what the thirteenth century poets knew when they called them chansons de toile or chansons d^istoire. These are, however, only suppositions and we must guard against con sidering them as fact. Neither Henri d*Andeli nor Gerbert de Montreuil tells us why he called them chansons de;toile, nor Jean Renart why he calls them chansons d'histoine. The chanson de toile is a domestic genre. Twelve out of the twenty take place indoors and in private quarters, while only six are definitely set out-of-doors. Five of -< these are in gardens. No. XVI does not immediately take us indoors, but by the third line we are in the intimacy of the nuptial chamber. No. XVIII does not specify the setting at the opening and the denouement takes place out-of-doors, but again in the garden. Only No. XII is out-of-doors 136 throughout and we have already mentioned the peculiarities of this fragment. With so much indoor action it is only natural that the "Natureingang" found in so many French lyrics of this period would have to be altered somewhat. However, it is not missing. Spring, ever conducive to love affairs in poetry, prevails in eight out of the twenty songs, and three others have situations that indicate Spring. In none of them is any other season indicated. We may discount Aiglentine*s remark about the cold in No. IV; it is only an excuse. She had other reasons for not wishing to take off her sur- coat. She is pregnant and probably unusually sensitive to drafts. The one that really devotes time to describing the season, the aforementioned fragment (No. V), is quite specific djout it. It is Easter and Easter came in April that year. Aside from this song regular "Natureingange" are found in No. Ill ("Quand vient en mai, que l*on dit as Ions jors") and in No. XVI ("Au novel tans pascour que florist l*aube.( espine"). A variation is found in No. VI; Doe waits for . Doon in the breeze under the hawthorne bush, and in line eight she exclaims: "Com es chargiez, com ez floriz." This line is subject to several interpretations, one of which is 137 I- : that these words are addressed to the hawthorn.^ This would indicate more of a nature setting than the other inter pretations. The first two lines of No. X: En un vergier lez une fontenele, dont clere est l'onde et blanche la gravele, can possibly qualify as a "Natureingang" also. Ironically, the one with the greatest feeling of nature in it of all of them, Gaiete and Oriour (No. XIII) does not have a 11 Nature ingang" at all. B. Plot Structure The plots of the chansons de toile can be seen from the short analyses or argument given at the beginning of this chapter. With the exception of the more artificial ones of Audefroi le BStard they consist of one action, one narrative element. In plot structure they are more like the drama than the novel. The entire story is told by seizing one significant moment and holding it up to us with a minimum of comment. It is in this way, perhaps, that the difference between the chanson de toile and the chanson de geste is 21 The opinion of Rita Le3.eune. Cf. Jean Renart, Le Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole, ed. R. Lejeune (Paris: Droz, 193&), p. 142. 138 most marked. Even if we exclude those chansons de toile which we have only in fragments, the plots are exceedingly simple but well rounded. In the fragments we can rarely tell what the plot would have been. The king*s daughter (No. X) laments the fact that her father has married her to an old man instead of her lover, Count Guy. Her husband overhears her and beats her. She prays God to send Count Guy to her aid. God hears her plea and Count Guy comes and they are comforted. Oriolanz (No. XIV) is weeping because her lover, Helier, has listened to slanderers and she is separat ed from him. He comes to her and they will be happy in spite of evil talk. Raynaut (No. Ill) comes back from court and does not look at Erembor when he passes by her house. She calls to him and he replies that she has for gotten him and loves another. She offers to swear before a hundred maidens and thirty ladies that she loves no lone but him. He comes up into the tower, sits beside her and they are reconciled. These may be taken as typical plots of the chansons de toile. They are more like incidents than plots. Nevertheless, each has a situation, an action, a denoument, and a resolution. A number of characteristic actions can be noted in the accomplishment of these plots. Most characteristic is 139 the lament, which comes at or near the beginning rather than at the end. It is the initiation of the action in Nos. VI, VII, IX, X, XI, XIV, XVII, XIX, and XX. The only one in which the lament comes at or near the end of the action is No. V. It must be admitted, however, that in this case it could not be otherwise. Doette cannot mourn for her lover until she learns of his death, and once having learned this news the action of the song is done. There remains only the resolution, the founding of the abbey. Perhaps the next most characteristic action is the beating or scolding the heroine receives because of her love. In No. I Aye's lament has more direct connection with the beatings she receives than with her love. In No. X the king's daughter is beaten by her husband (who is not a "vilain" but a 11 viellart"). He repents immediately, seem ingly because he is afraid of her father, the king, not from any sympathy for the girl. In No. XIX, which is one of Audefroi*s more complicated imitations, Ydoine is beaten and maltreated for three years. In No. XX poor Emmelot is beaten until she appears dead: she has wounds in a hundred places. Others are chastized even if not physically mistreated. Aude (No. II) receives very gentle reproof from her mother. 140 I Yolanz (No. VII) is also reproved by her mother, and not harshly either. Dramatically the beating and the reproof, no matter how mild, are the same action. They are the dis approval of the love by the established order, the obstacle which love must overcome. It should be noted that it is always the woman who overcomes it, or at least resists and endures it, in the chanson de toile. She may receive help from her lover. In No. XX he even obliges by killing the husband. This help always comes after the fact, if at all. It also comes after the woman has expressly requested it, either by praying to God (No. X), or by appealing to her lover. It is in this quality more than in any other that the principal female character of the chanson de toile de serves to be called a heroine. It is she who resists the opposing forces, whether they be beatings, reproaches, the opposition of her parents, unjust suspicions, or simply the apparent indifference of her lover. In this respect— that is, as a dramatic motivation to the plot— we may classify along with the beatings and scoldings several other actions: the "losengeors" in No. XIV, Henri's ignorance of or in difference to Aiglentine's condition in No. IV, the accusations of infidelity in No. VII and No. Ill, thd rather bourgeois counterproposals of Arnelot's mother in No. XV, even the 141 I sticky marital situation in which Ysabiaus in No. XVIII finds herself, and the melodramatic competition Argentine comes up against in No. XVI. These last two are in the later, more elaborate poems of Audefroi le Bcttard. Complications like these do not occur in the earlier chansons de toile. Strict ly from the standpoint of plot structure the death of Doon in No. V might be added to the list. It is the obstacle which Doette must overcome. It can be noticed that in the earlier group (or those generally accepted as earlier) the obstacle varies from beatings to mere ignorance of the situation, but it is always simple and easily recognizable-- a "lieu commun" of ordinary life. Later on they get more nearly theoretical: "losengeors" and counterproposals. In the songs of Audefroi le B^tard whole phalanxes of opposing forces begin to appear: a seductive and quite practical concubine (No.XVl), rather confused marital set-ups (Beatris in No. XVII is pregnant by one man when she is scheduled to marry another; Ysabiaus in No. XVIII marries someone else but then decides she does not wish to give up her lover after all), and parents who even after they give in (No. XIX) have to set up a tournament for appearance's sake. An interesting case is presented by fair Euriaus (No. XI). unfortunately we have only one stanza of this song, so we shall always have to wonder just why she does not dare speak to Renaut. Clearly, though, an obstacle is presented and we can only guess whether she overcomes it or not. If we are to judge by the other chansons de toile she does, and by her own efforts. More interesting still is the case of Gaiete and Oriour (No. XIII). Here the obstacle is so subtle it is not even stated. The chansons de toile are condensed and stipped of almost every unnecessary explanation. The obstacle is the natural regret Gaiete feels at leaving home and family because of love. Yet. this is not once mentioned. It is shown reflected in Oriour. The resolution comes when Gaiete and Gerairs take their "droit chemin" toward his country. It should also be noted that except for incomplete fragments the situation is always resolved in the chanson de toile. This is particularly interesting since the chansons de toile are basically lyrics with somewhat of a melancholy air about them. One of their outstanding characteristics is the expression of love. They are also narratives, and a good narrative should, of course, be finished. Marriage is some times the resolution (No. IV, No. XIII, No. XV, No. XVII, No. XVIII, No. XX, and probably No. XIX: "a haute honor l'a mise"), but marriage is only a recognition of the fact that i 143 ’ the lovers have resolved their difficulties, so we can add to that group Nos. Ill, VII, X, and XIV wherein the lovers are united without mention of marriage. The resolution in No. XVII is particularly noteworthy. Audefroi le Bcbtard was not satisfied just to get the lovers married (which was necessary in this case) but he takes pains to dispose of the opposing fianc^. In No. XVII the heroine is already married so the husband has to be gotten out of the way before the resolution can take place. Such baroque complications are not characteristic of the "real" chansons de toile. The resolution is practically always a happy one: in twelve out of twenty at least. In several of the fragments we, of course, cannot tell or are left in doubt. The plots of the chansons de toile tend toward 11 com^die" father than tragedy. The atmosphere is frequently sad, melancholy, or t melodramatic but the outcome is generally happy. Truly sad endings are to be found in five at the most and each of these will bear closer scrutiny before we pronounce judgement on their endings. No. I is only a fragment. It does appear that1 Aye is in an unhappy situation, but this is a familiar beginning for a chanson de toile. In a number of others a satisfactory conclusion is reached after such a beginning, perhaps it would be best to class No. I with Noe^VI, XI, 144 and XII which are fragments and no ending is indicated. In No. II the situation looks more serious; she is warned that she had better forget Doon. This is only the second stanza, however, and No. II is also only a fragment. It may have come to a happy ending in the original, complete poem. No. IX presents another case, since it is not a frag ment and there is no indication in the manuscript that it is not complete. The content does appear to be unfinished, however. If it is not we can only admit that this song ends pathetically even if not tragically, Yzabel is only told— or reminded— of a knight esteemed for his valor at arm's who would love her. The interpretation of the second hemistich ("cui c'an poist ne cui grief1) of the last line of the stanza is sufficiently uncertain as to leave us quite in doubt. If the lady-in-waiting has in mind some knight as yet unknown to Yzabel then the poem is either unfinished or the ending is very unsatisfying. If the lady-in-waiting is referring to Yzabel's former lover back in her own country the ending is pathetic and a little poignant. If, however, she is referring to Yzabel*s husband and suggesting that he really is not so bad and that she could learn to love him we have a complete song and the ending is happy. This is most unlikely, though. Her husband has been called 145 a "vilain" in line 13, and in poetry of this epoch it is utterly impossible for the daughter of an emperor to love a "vilain". It is true that it is Yzabel herself who calls him a "vilain". If we are to accept this interpretation • we should have to assume that he is really not a "vilain" but that Yzabel calls him one to dramatize her plight. These are all suppositions, however, and the best that we can do is to admit that there is doubt as to the intentions of the author in the ending of this chanson de toile. No. VIII ends in a warning with rather dire forebodings in the background. On close examination, however, the warn ing (" qovegne t'en, bele Yolanz") is not as sinister as it appears at first galnce. Yolanz is only warned to be careful, to remember what she is doing. Her defiance in the.penultimate stanza has a foreboding ring as if she expects her husband to take vengeance, but she never says that she expects him to do so. It is far more an affirmation of her love for Count Mahi. In this light we might even consider as evidence of a happy resolution. If she is firm in her love perhaps it will win out. In one respect this story comes closer to the classical idea of tragedy, where principles win out and people are destroyed in the process, than any other of the chansons de toile. However, it like 146 all the others is a long way from the serious, single pur pose plot of a classical tragedy. Her announcement that she intends to overcome any obstacles to her love that may be set up might be considered a triumphant resolution of the dilemna. It is probably best to think of this poem as one where the full resolution has not been given. The authors '• v ...... of the chansons de toile left out everything they did not consider necessary. Perhaps the audience knew this story, or at least this type of story, well enough to know what happened in poems after the heroine had declared herself. We come now to fair Doette, No. V. Here we have the elements of a pathetically sad ending: lover is killed, heroine withdraws to an abbey. It is sad, but it is trium^- phant. Doette is true to her love and her love is to be maintained forever in the abbey which she will found. It is sad resolution, but a resolution in the tradition of the "com^die" with nothing of the classically tragic involved. Thus we see that of the five possible unhappy endiiigs two are fragments without any ending at all, two others are doubtful or equivocal in the resolution of the problem, and the one where the resolution is sad still communicates a sense of victory in the dramatic sense. The chanson de 147 toile is essentially a non-tragic genre where love always triumphs. In the chanson de toile it is always the woman who is the active element in bringing about this triumph. C. Characters The chanson de toile is about as economical in its personnel as it is in its settings. The heroine is by far the most important personnage and she overshadows everyone else. In the fragments she may be the only active personnage (No. V and No. XI). There is always a lover, of course, but he may only be mentioned, perhaps not even named (No. IX). Except in the ones by Audefroi le B^tard there are rarely more than three people. 1. Major characters; a. Heroines. The heroines are all in love and have a few other characteristics in common, but each has a distinct personality. About the most note worthy thing they have in common, aside from being in love, is will power. This, of course, is necessary if they are to overcome the obstacles and bring about the happy resolution of the dilemna, as we have mentioned in analyzing the plot structure. Twelve of them, including all of Audefroils 148 heroines, are definitely strong-willed and aggressive. They must have been considered rather "effront^e" for their time. They are quite feminine, though. Yolanz (No. VIII) makes all the advances, but when her lover enters she lowers her chin and cannot speak. Oriolanz (No. XIV) takes Helier into her arms and begins to embrace him. Erembor (No. Ill) accosts Raynaut when he will not speak to her. Gaiete (No. XIII) waits to be chosen by Gerairs but 1ihen does not hesitate. She, not Gerairs, dismisses Oriour. Even Doette (No. V), who is every inch a lady, recovers from her swoon quickly enough to be polite to the squire and then takes over the situation. Ysabiaus (No. XVIII), one of Audefroi's strong-willed ladies, is described as a "ipucele bien aprise", but she makes the decisions and arranges to send her lover away and then to receive him on his return. But she is fdminine enough to dress up for the occasion. The other Yolanz (No. VIII) is somewhat overly aggressive. She replies quite sharply to her mother on very little provocation. Not all of the heroines are so bold. Aye (No. I) makes no reply to her mother. Nor does Aude (No. II), though she has even been beaten. Doe (No. VI) seems quite passive about her grief, as does Euriaus (No. XI). These are short fragments and we can hardly say what might have happened i 149 later on. Aiglentine (No. XIV) seems to be quite cooperative with her mother, who is, it must be noted, being quite kind to her. Whether it was timidity that kept her from asking Henri to marry her or not we cannot know. There is a> little hint of aggressiveness in the refrain ("Or orrez ja comment la bele Aiglentine esploita."). There is even a subtle touch reflecting the position women still held at that time in the refrain at the end. It expresses the great joy Count Henri had in having Aiglentine--not hers in having him. The king's daughter in No. X is not bold either. Her only re sort is to pray God that her lover come rescue her. Yzabel (No. IX) is not much more bold; she can only bemoan her fate and long for a lover to help her out. She is quite bold enough to be wanting a lover, though, and there is always the possibility that this song is only a fragment too, even though the manuscript does not indicate it. In several of the fragmentary songs we really know little about the character of the heroine. Of Aigline (No. XII) we only know that she loves Guy and he loves her, and that she is going to the festivities at Castle Beauclair wearing a red taffeta "bliaut" and an extremely stylish train. These trains brought down the thundering denunciation of the clergy because of their extravagance^— and nearly two and a half meters is quite a long train— so perhaps Aigline was rather bold after all. Since we do not have the rest of the poem we can only speculate. The heroines of Audefroi le Bcttard's poems are all, as has been mentioned above, quite bold. Some of them are alsoqiite astute and good managers also. Aside from Ysabiaus whom we have noted as being quite capable of managing a rather complicated love life, an interesting situation is evidenced by the case of Argentine (No. XVI). She has dif ficulties with her husband, which might have been caused partially by her lack of tolerance for his philanderings. However, she manages to get to the court of the Emperor and work up to quite an important position. Then her five sons, who were left behind with their father, show up and take up her cause. The "other woman" is driven out and Argentine assumes her position at home. I______ 22cf. Joan Evans, Life in Medieval France, (Oxford: University .Press, 1925) and Edmond Faral, La vie quotidienne au temps de Saint-Louis, (Paris: Hachette, 1938) and especially Albert L^on Gu^rard, French Civilization from its Origins to the Close of the Middle Ages, (London: Uhwin, 1920), p. 234, note 1. 151 23 Several commentators have seen a possible source for this story in the marital difficulties of Philippe Auguste, who was married in 1193 to Ingeborg of Denmark. The day after the wedding he repudiated her and refused to let her enter Paris. He then proceeded to marry Agn&s de Meran. Ingeborg appealed to her father (not her sons) and by the means of the intervention of two successive Popes and a show of military force was restored to her royal rights and privileges, but seemingly n6t to the King's favor. She retired to Corbeil and died there. It might plausibly have been suggested also by some of the difficulties of Alienor of Aquitaine who was divorced by Louis VII in 1152. She then married Henry II of England with whom she got into trouble over questions of fiefs and successions, was im prisoned by him for about seven years and did call on her sons, chiefly Richard Coeur-de-Lion, to help her out. In either case, of course, the historical incidents could have only suggested the story in a general way to Audefroi. De tails do not coincide and in in the story of Argentine there is no discussion of inheritances, fiefs, or royal privileges, which there certainly was in the cases of Ingeborg. and Alienor. 23Cf. Bossuat, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 17. . 152 If these historical ladies resembled the heroine of one of Audefroi's poems, are these poems evidence of the new emancipation of women in the thirteenth century? Perh^pis, but again there is the word of warning: these are lyric poems, not chronicles. They do not presume to historical accuracy. Their ladies were drawn from a vague, olden time even when they were composed. b. Heroes. The heroes can be considered next in importance after the heroines. However, there is quite a gap. They are a poor second. In fact, it is perhaps not exact to call them heroes at all. None of them does any thing very worthy of the epithet of hero. In most instances the heroes are hardly described or qualified at all. One supposition is that if the heroines were in love with them they were deserving of such love. Such a sup position is possible, but there is very little firm evidence of it. They are rarely shown doing anything at all to deserve this love from the heroines. Since love in the chansons de toile is generally physical in nature one assumption would be that the heroines fell in love with them because of their physical attractions. This again we cannot deny since we do not know the real 153 reason for the heroine's choice at all. There are some small but inconclusive evidences that it was a case of physical attraction. Oriolanz (No. XIV) certainly longs for Helier in a physical way. Both Beatris (No. XVII) and the "fille a roi" seem completely satisfied when their lovers caress them, the latter without any apparent amelioration in her situation or any hope that there will be. But these are not proof that the attraction was physical in the'first place. The best evidence that it was not is the fact that there is almost never any reference to the physical ap pearance of the hero. In only one (No. Ill) is he described: gros par espaules, greles par lo baudre, blonde ot le poil, menu, recercel^; en nule terre n'ot si biau bacheler.24 Of course, we have very little description of the heroines either, except that they are practically always "bele". We know that Yzabel (No. IX) was a blonde. Aiglentine (No. IV) has a "vis cler" and a "gent cors". This is as much description as we get of any of them. It is not surprising ' i- then that the heroes do not get described when even the heroines are not. 241. 26-28. 154 The heroes of the chansons de toile are treated rather severely by Jeanroy in his Oriqines: Comment ceux qui sont l'objet d'un tel amour ont-ils su l'inspirer? Ce n'est certes pas par la tendresse et les £gards; la fougueuse humilite des amantes n'a d'^gale que la superbe indifference des amants; elles ont devant eux 1*attitude d'une servante devant son maitre, d'une devote devant son Dieu; c'est Doe qui attend Doon, et elle I1attend en vain |No. VI]; Euriaut n'ose parler h. Renaut, et Renaut se garde bien de faire le premier pas [No. X I ]; c'est Raynaut qui, sans pr^texte, s'^loigne d'Erembor qui s'excuse et se justifie [No. Ill], Aucun ne semble songer h. la delaiss^e qui se consume. Belle Amelot jure de se tuer si on he lui donne pour mari Garin, et c*est une m&re compatissante qui mande Garin [No. X V ]; le "preu Henri" est le type de ces indiff^rents; il semble pourtant qu'il ait quelques devoirs envers Aiglentine qui a c 4 d & §i son amour; elle "empire, palit, et engroissb" sans qu’il s'en inqui&te aucunement, et elle ne semble rien trouver d'Strange ci. cette conduite: ... C'est elle qui va trouver Henri, qui tranquille- ment "se gisoit en son lit", et le demande nettement en mariage. Quand ci lui, ses protestations sont un peu tardives, et il nous parait accepter ce qu'on lui propose avec la placidit^ d'un homme qui ne s'interesse guere !i ces choses.25 He is, frankly, being unfair to at least some of them. The stories of Doe (No. VI) and of Euriaus (No. XI) are fragments and we do not know whether Doe waited in vain or not nor why Euriaus does not dare speak to Renaut. As for Henri, we have no indication that he knew Aiglentine's condition before she 250P . cit., p. 220-221. 155 came to him. When she asks him whether he will marry her or not: - Oil - dit il - one joie n'oi mes tel. - 2® and becomes "molt joianz". This certainly does not appear the reaction of a man "qui ne s'int^resse gulre ci. ces choses" . Friedman has not let Jeanroy's remarks escape him. He defends every one of the heroes calumniated by Jeanroy. In defending Henri he points out that the lovers have never discussed marriage and that: This is not uncommon in medieval erotic literature from which the marital problem is normally excluded and in which marriage often puts an end to the love adventure and perhaps to love itself.27 He also finds that: The violent exception which Jeanroy takes to the fact that Henri is lying down is quite incomprehen sible, except that this attitude would seem to sup port his contentions for the hero's nonchalance. Yet just as the sewing scene permitted a private conver sation between mother and daughter, so does Henri's rest permit a private conversation between the lovers.28 Friedman's reasons for Henri's recumbent position are ex cellent and probably more logical than Jeanroy's. However, 26No . IV, 1. 42. 270p. cit., p. 109. 28Ibid., p. 109. 156 29 Paul. Verrier has found other reasons which explain more specifically what might be construed as indifference on Henri's part. He notes that this position in similar circumstances is found in a number of Danish ballads which show evidences of having been derived from Old French songs. One of them, found in several Scandinavian versions, shows close affinities with this chanson de toile. He concludes that this situation of having the girl come to ask the co author of her embarassing condition to marry her and finding him stretched out on the bed was a stock situation in Old French songs which have now been lost. Verrier believes that one of these songs was an ancestor of both the chanson de toile and of the Scandinavian ballads. So what appears to be indifference to Jeanroy and stage getting for a private conservation to Friedman (could they not have talked just as privately sitting up?) was probably nothing but a stock situation originally. Regardless of Henri's indifference, we must admit that the heroes of these stories often appear to take a very casual interest in the affairs and the fate of the heroine, 9 Q ^Paul Verrier, "Bele Aiglentine et Petite Christine" in Romania LXIII (1937), p. 354-76. 157 considering how deeply involved they are in them. Most of this is no doubt due to the matter of focus. The object is to highlight the heroine's emotions and in order to do this more effectively the hero's are played down. Some of it may be due to a continuance of the tradition of the chanson de qeste in which the hero was supposed to show no great preoccupation with trifles like love, which was his natural due anyhow. As for Aiglentine and her dondition it should be remembered that neither social custom nor law at the time of the composition of the chansons de toile, and for several centuries afterward, gave the unmarried mother-to-be any particular rights on the one responsible for her condition or involved any obligation on his part unless she had proof of a promise to marry. Aiglentine admittedly does not. Goethe is said to have had just this situation in mind when he decided to build up the Gretchen incident in his treat ment of the Faust story. Count Guy in No. X does come when the king's daughter calls for him— the implication is that God has heard her plea and that he had to. However, he does not do much about her situation except comfort her and sit down and cry with her. Another Count Guy (No. XVI) treats his wife shamefully, but we can hardly call this indifference. He is in love wijah 158 another woman. The height of masculine indifference, or rather of masculine eggism, is reached in No. XX by a third Count Guy. He comes ("par adventure") upon poor Emmelot, whom he is said to love faithfully, and who has just been beaten until she was taken for dead, her body broken and pierced with a hundred wounds: - Bele Emmelot, - fait il, - dex vos porvoie. Dites moi, bele, je vos proi, s'on vos a batue por moi?30 Seemingly if it had been for any other reason it would have been all right. But these are only a few cases. Even this last Count Guy ends up killing the cruel husband, whisking the "bele" up on his horse, and riding off with her to his country. In most of the chansons de toile the hero either acts rather properly or does not appear at all. As long as he exists for her to love him, not much more is demanded of him in a song devoted almost exclusively to the heroine's emotions. ' c. Mothers. The mother of the heroine may be said to be a major character in the chanson de toile, if we keep in mind that the heroine is the only character who is really 301. 33-35. 159 major. There is not always a mother present, and in one (No. XVI) the mother figure has become confused. Argentine starts out as a heroine, then when her five sons appear is somewhat of a mother figure, though the Empress plays a more distinctly motherly image role than Argentine in the latter part of the poem. Several commentators have been quite hard on the mothers and fathers in the chansons de toile. Among them is Bossuat: C'est une r&gle absolue dans les chansons d'histoire que les parents et les maris soient inflexibles, mais e'en est une non moins stire que ces derniers soient bafou^s.^l Needless to say, this is somewhat of an exaggeration. Mothers figure in eight of the chansons de toile. in No. I the mother is described as being evil, and the daughter is beaten morning and evening. Unfortunately, this is a fragment and the song stops without our ever knowing just why the mother is called evil or whether she even has any thing to do with the beatings or not. Yolanz' mother in No. VIII is also called evil and she is castigating her daughter*:.. But there are reasons why she is doing so. Yolanz is married and we have no indication that her husband is a 310p. cit., Vol. I, p. 14. . 160 "vilain" or even that he is evil. Nonetheless, Yolanz obstinately refuses to give up talking to Count Mahi, even when she is told that it hurts her husband. The mother ex plains to Yolanz that she is berating her because she has to do it as her mother. Her warning to Yolanz is far from a threat. From the standpoint of dramatic opposition Yolanz' mother may be an evil force— or at least an opposing one— but from the standpoint of character we can hardly class her as wicked. Amelot's mother in No. XV reasons with her, tries to get her to marry someone else and is thus an oppos ing force. In the end she capitulates and not only consents but has Garin brought in and gives him a rich dowry to assure the accomplishment of the marriage. It is also implied that she mediates between her daughter and her husband who was much opposed to the marriage but who ends up by giving his consent. In No. XVII Beatris* mother does not appear until Beatris is already married to Hugo. Then she plays the part of the peacemaker, being the voice that calms Duke Henri and keeps him from disturbing the newly married couple. Only in No. XIX do we run into a really wicked mother. Not only does she speak harshly to her daughter but: Par les treces la prent, qu'ele ot blondes com laine, devant le roi son pere isnelement 1'enr m&ine, ?2 161 In No. II Aude's mother is given credit for a gentle heart and her warning to Aude could not be softer. This is also a fragment and we have no way of knowing why Aude should forget her love of Doon. It may not be parental objection at all. Aiglentine*s mother (No. IV) is certainly kind and is certainly not an opposing force. In fact, it is she who sets the machinery in motion which brings about the reunion of the lovers. d. Fathers. So we find only one truly evil mother out of the eight who play parts in the chansons de toile. The fathers do not fare quite as well, in only five of the chansons de toile is the father even mentioned. Again in No. XVI he is somewhat of a confused figure dramatically speaking. He is first the lover, then the evil or opposing force who only becomes a real father figure toward the end when the sons take up their mother's cause. In No. X the father appears only obliquely as the one who gave the heroine an old man for a husband. The father is not entirely evil, however, since the husband is afraid of his wrath after he has beaten the heroine. In No. XV the father is the opposing force who wants to give the girl another husband, but he relents and gives his approval to Garin in the end. In NO. XVII the father is not an opposing force, and not much 162 of a force at all. Duke Henri goes to him when he learns that Beatris and Hugo have run away. The father can only confirm the news, it is the mother who assuages the Duke's wrath. In No. XIX the father is a veritable tyrant of operatic proportions. It is even he who started the war that brought Garsile into Ydoine's country. When Ydoine is brought before her father he threatens, beats, and finally imprisons her in a tower for three years. At the end of this period he seems surprised to hear her complaining. His heart is not all black; he repents and takes her into his arms. But he still wants to save face: he tries to persuade her to marry someone else and, failing this, declares a tour nament with Ydoine as the prize rather than consent outright to her marriage to Garsile. Though the fathers may show a little more of an evil streak than the mothers, none of them appears quite as implacable as some of the critics have made them out to be. e. Husbands and the theme of the "mal marine". The husbands are an evil force, but this was the stock situation in medieval poetry. As has already been pointed out, marriage and love are two different and opposing factors in all the literature of this period. This was probably based 163 to some extent on fact. Political marriages and marriages to join fiefs took place and had their effect on the think ing of the day, although their number and importance has been greatly exaggerated.33 Their counterparts in lesser circles also existed. By the twelfth century the attitude toward marriage had already become a literary tradition regardless of fact. The literary tradition is based as much on class consciousness as on feeling. The husband is generally a "vilain", a person of lower social rank, and more despised for that than for any feeling of personal antipathy. The theme of the "mal marine" existed long be fore any group of poems was dedicated especially to its treatment.3^ Six of the chansons de toile might be classed as songs of the "mal marine" or as having substantial elements of this theme in them. In No. X the husband is definitely evil. He is not described as a "vilain", though his social rank is a bit equivocal. He is of her father's household or following. Since her father is a king this might include knights of 33cf. Guerard, op. cit., and Jeanroy, Origines, op. cit. O A cf. Jeanroy, Origines. "La Chanson Dramatique", p. 84 ff. 164 rather high standing as well as lesser persons. He behaves most reprehensively, it is true, but the upper classes were quite capable of such behavior also. His most unpar donable fault is that he is old. In a lyric context this puts him on the side of the opposition, even moreso than the fact that he beats his wife. Yzabel (No. IX) has been married beneath her station. Her husband never appears, and there is no indication of mistreatment. She calls him a "vilain" and, furthermore, a foreigner. In fact, her terminology sounds as if hers might have been one of those marriages arranged for political or military reasons: O C livree seus a une estrainge gent: It will also be noted that her longing for a lover is tinged with a possible need for a protector: - Se je savoie .1. cortois chivelier, he de ces armes fust loeiz et prisiez, j'ameroie de greit et volontiers. -36 What she may have been seeking was a knight stronger than her husband to take her back home. This is a song of a "mal 35l. 7. 361. 21-23. 165 marine", but we have only part of the story and that quite incomplete. In No. VIII Yolanz is married but again the husband appears only indirectly. He is not classed as a "vilain" or even as unkind. We do not know his social rank, but there is talk of his "parentez", who are important enough to incite Yolanz to defiance. He must have been a person of some consequence, with connections in highly placed circles. In fact, it appears that he is the one with cause for com plaint rather than Yolanz. In lyric poetry, however, love excuses everything. Dramatically, he is an opposing force and Yolanz can be considered as a "mal mariee". In No. XX we have the story of Emmelot who is also a "mal marine" with a husband who is not called wicked but who acts in that manner. He beats her until she is almost dead. He is by no means a "vilain"y he is a duke. Her lover is only a count. This, too, is a story of a "mal marine" with a husband who does not fit quite all the qualifications. In No. XVIII Ysabiaus is a "mal marine". She was married against her will and probably beneath her station. He is a "vavasor" and she is a "pucele bien aprise". However, he shows no other signs of being a bad husband, in fact, he 166 is a rather sympathetic character. She shows no evidence of hating him and the two lovers, after having caused his . death, give him a decent burial and observe some sort of mourning for him. But from the viewpoint of plot he is an opposing force, something to be overcome. Again No. XVI presents a confused case. The theme of the "mal marine" is treated in a most unusual way here. Argentine is married to Count Guy. It is a love marriage and they are quite happy for some time. Then when Sabine enters the picture he turns into something very nearly akin to the typical husband of the "mal marine". He is staLl no "vilain", however. Argentine overcomes him through the help of her five sons, not her lover. She has no lover other than Count Guy himself. Her object is to get back to her own country and presumably to Count Guy. Here we have elements of the "mal marine" theme but it all ends triumphant ly with married love supreme. This is, of course, one of Audefroi's pastiche creations and it is difficult to tell how many familiar themes he was trying to weave together. So we have six stories out of twenty with some elements of the theme of the "mal marine". In none of them is the husband completely typical of the "mal mari". The theme cbes not appear in all purity in the chansons de toile. Some 167 of the husbands are "vilains", some are cruel, but never are they both. The husband is, however, an evil force, a deter rent to the accomplishment of the single action that is the motivation of the plot. Before we leave the subject of husbands and marriage we might take a look at two other of the chansons de toile in which the subject is discussed but where the heroine has no husband. No. XV, the story of Amelot, is a bourgeois drama such as Scribe might have written a few centuries later. It is one of the chansons de toile in which the heroine makes it clear not only that she wants her lover but that she wants him for a husband. There are signs that this song is possibly later than the other anonymous ones, yet it is probably the most un-courtly one of them all. When her parents find Amelot determined to marry Garin her mother proposes that she marry Duke Girart or Count Henri instead. Garin's rank is never indicated. Perhaps her mother thought she could make a better marriage. Amelot's reply is a defense of marriage. She devotes two stanzas^- a lot for a chanson de toile— to an explanation of the seriousness of marriage and how awful her own feelings would be if she were married to a man she did not love. This ex pression of the feelings of the woman on marriage thkes us 168 a step farther along in history. In fact, all this attitude toward marriage in No. XV is quite at variance with the con ventional "mal marine" situation. No. XIX, the story of Ydoine, gruesome as it is, still respects the institution of marriage. Ydoine's father tries to have her take another husband, "riche et de haut parage", and when she will not he arranges it so that she can marry Garsile quite properly, with the proper motivation according to medieval tradition: after he has shown his "prouece" by winning her in a tournament. Marriage occupies a more respectable place in the chansons de toile than in much other medieval literature; moreso than in the "mal marine" songs, and certainly moreso than in all the literature of courtly love. 2. Minor characters. Minor characters are almost non-existent in the chansons de toile, but there are some of them. The almost Spartan economy of the genre precludes any proliferation, and the intense focus on the heroine further reduces the need for minor characters. In the strict est sense of the word it might be said that the heroine is the only major character and that all the others are minor. Even her lover is quite secondary, though quite necessary to the motivation of the plot. As we have seen, sometimes he does not actually appear on the scene. The parents of the 169 girl are also secondary but sometimes quite active elements. The husbands are shown chiefly as opposing forces, hardly character ized. There are three squires, all sympathetic characters. The one who brings the news of Doon's death to Doette (No. V) weeps to be obliged to tell her. He also incites her sym pathy in spite of her prostrate condition. A sympathetic squire is an active element in working out the denouement of No. XVII. He overhears Beatris lamenting and out of the purest of motives offers to get Hugo to come to her aid. The squire in No. XVIII is hardly characterized but he at least enjoys the confidence of the hero. The lady-in-waiting in No. IX should be classed with the squires in the align ment of the characters since her function is the same, and she is definitely sympathetic. In No. XVI, the story of Argentine, whose plot differs in so many ways even from the other songs by Audefroi, there are about as many minor characters as in all the other songs put together. There is, of course, Sabine. This is the only case of the "other woman" in these twenty songs, all of which are concerned with love affairs. Sabine herself is somewhat of an enigma. Her rank and social position are never given. She must have been of some consequence at Count * 170 Guy*s court, judging by her curt refusal to become his con cubine and the measures he felt obliged to use in order to win her over. She represents the evil influence that Argentine must overcome. When she is banished from the land there is no more discord nor "felonie". She seems to be more of a symbol than any of the other characters. The chansons de toile in general are straightforward and down- to-earth. There is no mysticism in them, no magic, no supernatural. This atmosphere does not lead to symbolism so Sabine has to be an earthly creature, but she seems to be somewhat of an incarnation of evil, the sort of character who would be more at home in an Arthurian romance than in a chanson de toile. Audefroi undoubtedly knew the mati^re de Bretagne since, it was popular by his time and Sabine may be a sign of such an influence. No. XVI is, of course, a late production and all of Audefroi*s poems show a tendency toward the verse novel when compared with the older and more direct songs. This may account for the presence of a char acter like Sabine. If she is the essence of evil then Count Guy becomes the lover, never anything else. He is only an evil force when under the influence of Sabine. Argentine is the heroine, of course. The Emperor and the Empress be come father and mother figures, but sympathetic ones, and the 171 five sons take the place of the sympathetic squire who assists in resolving the denouement. A word might be said about the crowds in these songs. There are very few. There is almost no anonymous mass moving the background. This is largely due to the more intimate nature of the stories. They take place mostly in private and there are almost no crowds hovering about. Some of this may be attributed to the intense emphasis on one action. There are a few background figures, however. That strange fragment about Aigline (No. XII) mentions: Ces demoiseles i vont por caroler, cil escuier i vont por behorder, cil chevalier i vont por esgarder? vont i cez dames por lor cors deporter. This is part of the festivity that is being prepared at Castle Beauclair and is one of the few instances of bustling multi-peopled activity even in the background of the chansons de toile. More typical is No. Ill in which Raynaut comes back from the king*s court in the front ranks. We presume this means in the front ranks of the returning knights, but there is no mention of other knights. The action is pin pointed on the necessary personnages and all others simply 371. 11-14. 172 are ignored. Another exception to this general rule is the tournament for the hand of Ydoine at the end of No. XIX. Four stanzas are given over to it and there is a great deal of bustling activity. Even in the story of Argentine (No. XVI) there is mention of the two courts, Count Guy's and then the Emperor's. People are present but quite vague. Argentine takes leave of all the barons, there are ladies in the Empress1 suite, and the Emperor declares a fort night's festivities but there is no description of the people who attend any of these. 3. Names: origin and possible significance. An indi cation of the relative unimportance of all these minor characters is the fact that many of them do not have names. The lovers generally do— in seventeen out of the twenty songs. Special note should be made of No. VII in which the lover appears, plays an active part, but never gets a name. The mothers are never named. Oddly enough, one of the fathers is. In No. XV Amelot's father is called Lancelin in the last line, though quite incidentally. The husbands are never named, unless we include Count Guy in No. XVI. This situation is confused at best and outside of the rules that govern the plots of the earlier, purer chansons de toile. Three of the 173 minor characters have names, and all three of these are in songs by Audefroi le Bcfctard. The names themselves have an interesting sound. They add to the air of antiquity, the "once upon a time" quality with which the chansons de toile are invested. They are, however, for the most part the common names given to char acters in lyric poetry of the day. They probably had less ring of antiquity to the original hearers than they do to us today. There are often several variations on the same name, sometimes within the same poem. One, No. V, has the heroine and the hero bearing variants of the same name: Doette and Doon. The same device is repeated in No. VI: Doe and Doon. Many of the names are of Germanic origin, but not a majority of them. Out of twenty-eight proper names used in the 38 chansons de toile twelve are of Germanic origin and six teen of French or Latin. The men1s names are more out standingly Germanic than the women's. Seven out of twelve masculine names are Germanic in origin? only five out of sixteen feminine ones are. Names of Germanic origin were common in France by the time these poems were composed, even as surnames. This was due to the heavy Frankish overlay in 38 Actually twenty-nine. I could find no trace of Euriaus elsewhere. 174 the population, by this time thoroughly absorbed but still 39 with Germanic names. In fact, Prankish names had a rather elegantly antique sound. Many Frankish traits hung on this way: the only two heroines in the chansons de toile who are described at all--other than "bele"— are blondes, Yzabel in No. IX and Ydoine in No. XIX. The name Yzabel (or Ysabiaus in No. XVIII) has interesting connotations. The date of its popularity in Prance can be traced to the Blessed Isabele de Prance, sister of Saint Louis, beatified shortly after her death. It is a Spanish variant (her mother was Blanche of Castille) of Elizabeth, which in its original form had never been very popular in France. However, the name Isabelle was known in Prance before then. Isabelle of Hainaut was married to Philippe Auguste and was the mother of Louis VIII. She was married at the age of ten and was Queen from 1180 to 1190. Judging from the way Philippe Auguste treated Ingeborg of Denmark after Isabelle*s death had made him a widower, and his violent preference for Agn&s de M^ran, who was present at court before Isabelle died, we have some reason for suspecting that the poor child's life was not all ^Albert Dauzat, Les noms de familie de France, (Paris: Payot, 1949). 175 happiness. She died at the age of twenty. As her dowry she brought to the crown of France the city of Arras and a large part of the Artois, the home of Audefroi le Bcttard and probably of the authors of some of the anonymous chansons de toile. However, we must guard against finding too much significance in the names. The story of Isabelle of Hainaut may have inspired the story of our Yzabel— in that case this anonymous song would have necessarily been written after 1180— or it may not have. The other Ysabiaus (No. XVIII) would not fit the known facts of the life of Isabelle of Hainaut, but Audefroi may have taken the name from the older song. If the names had special significance to the authors this escaped at least one of the copyists. In No. VI the manuscript calls the lover "Guion" in line 2 and "Doon" from then on. These names are not derivatives of the same stem. There is a possible significance in the names Aigline and Guy in No. XII. Aigline is of Latin-French origin and means an eaglet. Guy is of Germanic origin and means "one from the forest". However, the meaning of the entire fragment that has come down to us is so obscure that it is difficult to see if these meanings play a part in it or not. It is one of a group of songs sung on the same occasion in 176 the Guillaume de Dole and the next one contains a lark, but no forest or mention of one. The name of the young squire in No. XIII, Gerairs, is of Germanic origin and means "a; lance of steel" or "a hard lance". This ties in very well with his returning from the ^quintaine", the practice session for the tournament. The names Gaiete and Oriour both seem to be of French origin. Is there a significance in the fact that the hero with the Germanic name carries off one of the sisters with French names, leaving the other one disconsol ate? Is there, in fact, a significance in the fact that most often a heroine bearing a name of Latin or French origin falls in love with a hero with a name of Germanic origin? Can this be a memory of the Frankish invasions? Perhaps, but we are in the realm of speculation. It would be best to remember that the chansons de toile, regardless of any other possible significance, were intended primarily to please and to entertain, not to instruct. CHAPTER IV THE PLACE OP THE CHANSON DE TOILE IN LITERATURE The chanson de toile is at best a minor genre when viewed in the context of literature as a whole. As we have seen, only twenty of them remain and of these twenty five are known to be imitations of the original examples of the genre now surviving. Of the others at least two are of such a fragmentary nature that it is difficult to tell much about them, three others are known to be fragments from the manner in which they are included in the verse novels that preserve them for us, and one of the remaining ones (No. IX) does not seem to be complete based on content and plot structure. There are really only nine that are complete and reasonably "authentic". We must not despise the work of Audefroi le B&tard becaus it is imitative, however. At least one critic, and a reliable one at that, Scheludko, •*; considers them the best of the lot. He thinks of them as the culmination of the development of the genre. Audefroi, he says, states clearly ^Op. cit. 177 178 wh&t is left indefinite in the earlier songs. Lanson is singularly harsh on them: Je ne n^occupe pas des imitations plus que mediocres qui furent composees au Xllle si&cle par Audefroi le Bcttard. ^ The truth is, as is generally the case, probably somewhere halfway between these two extremes. We have seen while analyzing plot structure that the songs of Audefroi present much more involved, more highly developed situations than any of the other songs. He also takes more time for descriptions and a little more for characterization. Even in Audefroi, however, there is very little psychological penetration. The personnages of the chanson de toile are one dimensional and Audefroi has not departed from the character of the genre in this respect. His songs occupy a place somewhere between the chanson de toile in its purest state and the roman d 1aventure or verse novel. The chanson de toile itself falls between the chanson de geste and the roman d»aventure. It is not intended by the above to indicate a strict temporal or chronological arrangement. Chansons de geste were still being composed when the chanson de toile appeared o Op. cit., p. 64, note 2. 179 and certainly they were still being sung. At the other end of the period of their existence, we know that some of the chansons de toile are included in romans d 1aventure and the entire work of Audefroi is posterior to a number of such romans. It is in the line of literary development that the progression can best be seen. A. Relationship With the Chanson de Geste We have said a great deal about the similarities in versification between the chanson de geste and the chanson de toile. It will be recalled that there are similarities in structure also. The technique of "recommencement", say ing the same thing over in a slightly different form, is used in both. This technique is imminently suited to the epic, which moves in a slow, dignified pace and discourses over a whole field of ideas and often over the whole history of a race, but seems a strange choice for the chanson de t toile which is highly condensed and relates only a single incident, sometimes leaving much of that to implication. Nonetheless, it is used in them. A derivative of this, the repetition of a phrase (sometimes a whole line), particularly at the beginning of a laisse or stanza, is found in both of them and is even more marked in the chanson de toile. 180 This could be because the reduced space of the chanson de toile makes it more apparent. In No. V six out of the eight stanzas begin with "Bele Doette", and not one of them is in direct address to Doette. In No. IX stanzas two and three begin: - Laise, - fait elle - ... while five and six begin: - Se je savoie .1. cortois chivelier, and: - La moie dame, je sai .1. chivelier. There are other points of similarity in the presenta tion of the two genres. Jean-Jacques Salverda de Grave has O summed them up in his "La chanson de geste et la ballade": 1. Mixture of lyricism and narration. Of this there can be no doubt in either of the genres. The difference comes in the amount and the importance of each. The chanson de geste is an epic and is not predominantly lyric. It ^Melanges de philologie et d'histoire offerts ^ M. Antoine Thomas. (Paris: Champion, 1927), p. 389-394. Note that Salverda de Grave includes the chansons de toile in the term "ballade" and the only French "ballades" he mentions are chansons de toile. The outline given here is directly from his article, but I have adapted his remarks under the headings quite freely and even added to them on occasion. - 181 stops its relentless if measured flow from time to time to give vent to the feelings of one of its personnages like water backing up before a dam, then plunges on with the narrative. The chanson de toile cannot stop very often since it is proceeding directly to a point. There is actually more lyric poetry in a geste like the Chanson de Roland than in a chanson de toile. The difference is in style, emphasis and in the total quantity of verse. The lyricism in the Chanson de Roland interrupts the narrative, which then pro ceeds as if it had never been stopped. The lyricism in the chanson de toile is an integral part of it. It does not stop the action? it is part of the action. Furthermore, due to the reduced dimensions of the chanson de toile this lyric ism assumes a much greater importance. 2. An abrupt style. Again this is a question of emphasis and degree. The style seems much more abrupt in the chanson de toile because of the smaller size and more intense centralization on the single action. The following description of the style of the P^l£rinage de Charlemagne could well be applied to the chansons de toile: II frappe irr^sistiblement par son caract&re archalque tout lecteur habitu£ h. notre ancienne langue? il pr^sente au plus hhut degr£ cette 4 l 4 - gance concise, m6me elliptique, cette allure 182 saccad^e, cette absence de transitions, et en m£me temps cette extreme precision de termes et ce r^alisme dans le <|£tail qui donnent tant de gr£ce et d'original- it£ aux moments les plus anciens de notre po£sie nationale. 11 offre souvent des obscurites, qui ne tiennent pas toutes S. 1* alteration du texte ni h notre connaissance imparfaite de l*ancienne langue.^ 3. Repetition. This has been noted above. It should be remarked that the repetition of whole laisses or stanzas, the 11 laisses stimilaires" of the chansons de geste, is not suited to the shorter form of the chanson de toile and is not used in them. 4. Use of dialogue. This is found in both genres to a great extent. Nearly half the lines in the Chanson?de Guillaume contain words in direct discourse. The chansons de toile are even more striking in their use of dialogue. The story of fair Yzabel (No. IX) is a good example of the frequency of the use of dialogue in the chansons de toile. Of its eighteen lines (exclusive of the refrain) fourteen are in direct discourse, one even divided between two speak ers. No. VII has twenty4four lines (again exclusive of the refrain) twenty of which are spoken directly by the characters in the story. ...... ^Gaston Paris, "La Chanson du p£l£rinage de Charlemagne1; Romania IX, p. 48. 183 5. Refrains. The chansons de toile are much more striking in their use of refrains than the chansons de geste. Their form demands a refrain and at regular intervals. The refrains in the chansons de geste appear at irregular inter vals and sometimes not at all. The refrains in the chansons de toile are at least one full line. The shortest is five syllables (Nos. Ill and V). This refrain is always connect ed with the text is some way. It may follow the sense con tent of the stanza or it may only comment on it, but there is always a rapport between the two. The refrain in the geste is generally a syllable or a group of sounds seemingly without meaning in themselves. They were probably a signal to the musician. Certainly those in the chansons, de toile were signals of this sort, as we know from the musical notations which have come down to us. Salverda de Grave compares the refrains of the chansons de geste with those found in certain English and Scotch ballads which may con sist of as little as a single vowel.^ 6. Impersonality. Many of the chansons de geste and most of the chansons de toile are anonymous. This anonymity ^Cf. Francis James Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, published by Helen Child Sargent and G. L. Kittredge, London, 1904. 184 is not just a question of the fact that we do not know their authors; what is more important is that there is no need of our knowing. With very few exceptions the poets never appear in either of these two genres. There are only two occasions in the chansons de toile where the poet intrudes and at leas t one of these (the last stanza of No. XIV) is an interpola tion which may well be due to the whim of a copyist. Both the chanson de geste and the chanson de toile are impregnated with the style of the genre, not the style of the artist. Salverda de Grave feels that the chansons de geste were derived ultimately from ballads somewhat similar to the chan sons de toile. He does not hold that the chansons de geste come from the chansons de toile. This would hardly be possible since many of the chansons de geste are older than any of the dates assigned to the chansons de toile, or ballads as he calls them. His idea is that they both stem from a common ancestor and that the chansons de toile or ballads are more like this common ancestor. They probably evolved first and in an earlier form than that we now have. The chansons de geste came from this earlier form. This thesis had been expressed many years before by Leroux de Lincy: Plusieurs de nos chansons de geste n'£taient dans leur redaction primitive que des romances 185 cl peu pareilles au r^cit que fait Audefroi le Bcbtard des malheurs de la belle Argentine.® t Salverda de Grave is of the opinion, based to a great extent on his exhaustive study of the Gormont et Isembart, that the regular stanzas of the chanson de toile antedate the irregular laisses of the chanson de geste. He postulates a form of the geste which consisted of stanzas which were sung alter nated with laisses which were recited and which would be an intermediate form between the old chansons de toile or ballads as he calls them and the chanson de geste. Summing up Salverda de Grave's ideas in connection with the others we have presented on the relations between the chanson de geste and the chanson de toile we may well admit they could have come from a common source and that it is quite plausible that the chanson de toile resembles the source more than the chanson de geste. However, the chanson de toile as we have it is a product of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries while the geste had preceded it by some time, at least in the period of its development and flowering. In a literary line the chanson de toile comes after the chandoh de geste even though chronologically this is not ®Adrien Jean-Victor Leroux de Lincy, Recueil de chants historiques franqais, (Paris: 1841), Vol. I, p. 12. 186 invariably the case. Prom the standpoint of performance they were probably contemporary to a large extent: gestes were still being sung when the chansons de toile were in their popularity. Perhaps at this point it would be well to recall some of the dissimilarities between the chansons de geste and the chansons de toile. The most obvious are length and presen tation. The chanson de toile is short and treats a single incident. The geste is long and episodic. It treats many, many incidents. The chanson de toile is always about love, the geste rarely if ever. The chanson de toile is much more melodic and noticeably more lyric. They both treat members of the high nobility but the geste seizes them in their great, heroic and dignified moments while the chanson de toile is the intimate story of a portion of their personal lives. The settings betray this: the geste takes place on battlefields and in the vast banqueting halls and council chambers of the feudal castles. The chanson de toile takes place in the same castle but in the ladies' quarters or in the garden. The geste has a vast array of . carhacters. The chanson de toile rarely has more than three. The geste is centered on the hero and his deeds. The chanson de toile is focused on the heroine and her emotions. There 187 is a feeling of nationality, of race and of religion in the geste. The chanson de toile is centered on one person whose race and nationality are not brought out and religion hardly figures at all. The chanson de geste is governed by dignity; the chanson de toile by emotion. In the chanson de geste there is a feeling that vast forces larger than man are working behind the scenes, a feeling of fatality or of destiny or of God directing the actions of great hosts and their superior leaders, often by means of miracles or of divine intervention. In the chanson de toile there is no super natural. Religion is definitely in the background if pre sent at all. God is called upon occasionally but if he hears the plea he brings about perfectly natural things that might easily have happened without his intervention. The virtue of "vraisemblance" is ever present in the chanson de toile; there is not even much point in discussing it in connection with the chanson de geste. The geste is a vast, heroic fresco. The chanson de toile is an illuminated miniature. B. Relationship with the Roman d*Aventure We have mentioned the fact that the chansons de toile by Audefroi le Bcttard remind us of the romans d 1 aventure or verse novels, the romans mondains. or simply romans. There i 188 is a further connection between these works and the chansons de toile in that many of the latter are preserved by their inclusion as songs in the romans. Here a chronological line can be observed a little more distinctly than in the case of the relationship with the chanson de geste. The romans 7 began to appear about the end of the twelfth century, }ust about the time the chansons de toile were beginning to de cline in favor. There would be no point in discussing the dissimilarities. It will be sufficient to recognize that they are different in form. They are different in subject matter also, but in this there are some similarities. They both treat of love. The romans, however, generally view love from the man's point of view, although the woman is clearly permitted her feelings and exercises quite an influence on the course of the story. The romans are dis cursive, not focused on a single incident. Consequently they show a wide variety of setting^ and scenes and include a large cast of characters. Feelings of nationality and of race are present and active, though not in the degree that they are in the chansons de geste. Religion is present and may play a part. There is very often supernatural. The ...... 7Cf, Charles-Victor Langlois, La vie en France au moyen £ge d'apr&s des romans mondains du temps (Paris: Hachette, 1926), Introduction. 189 romans soon fell under the Influence of the "mati&re de Bretagne" and the supernatural abounds after this influence is established. They may have classical or courtly influences. The former influence is completely absent from the chansons i de toile and the latter one almost totally absent. That the romans were influenced by-'-.the chansons de toile seems apparent, but difficult to prove. The romans were influenced by a great many things and just what part of their subject matter is due to an influence from the chansons de toile is rather conjectural. The idea of taking love and its consequences as the principal theme of a narrative must have either come from the chansons de toile or at least have been transmitted through them to the romans. It is doubtful, however, that this idea was ever dead in popular poetry or poetry for popular consumption. The attitude toward women must have been conditioned by the chansons de toile also. Some of the romans are not yet under a very definite courtly influence (cf. Galeran), but their attitude toward women is not that of the chansons de geste. This may have come through the lais which seem to have been contemporary with the chansons de toile. The romans, like the chansons de toile. were produced only to please not to teach. The best proof that the authors of the romans were 190 familiar with the chansons de toile and consequently subject to influences coming from them is, of course, the fact that they quoted from them rather extensively in their works. C. Relationship with Other Lyric Genres The relationship of the chansons de toile to the other lyric genres of their time should be thought of more in terms of rapport than of direct influence. The chansons de toile formed the first lyric genre to emerge, at least in the forms in which we have these genres today or in anything resembling them. Even Alfred Schossig, who is inclined to put the date of composition of the chansons de toile near the beginning of the thirteenth cehtury rather than farther back in the twelfth says: Die chansons toile, d'histoire, sind die Sltesten Lieder der altfrazBsischen Lyrik.8 Various forms were undoubtedly in the process of development at the same time and others may well have existed prior to this time, but they are not directly attested. The develop ment of any of the lyric forms from the chansons de toile cannot be assumed. They all arose as branches from the same 80p. cit., p. 184. * 191 stock and show relationships one to another, but these relationships indicate a common heritage rather than direct descent. The first lyric form was probably the feminine monolo gue. Prom this it was but a step to the dialogue; the lover simply answered. Prom this situation various forms or genres developed. Most of them are lost to us, undoubtedly. The chansons de toile had the good fortune to emerge before the great surge of Provencal influence so that we have some evidence of them before just about everything was remodeled in the new style from the South. The chansons de toile were relatively short lived in popularity, which had its fortunate side also. Had they lived on they too would probably have been made over in the Provencal mode and the older forms lost. The pastourelle is a form imported from the South where it flourished in the langue d'oc for some time before coming into the literature of the langue d'oll. Possibly it .} was grafted onto whatever form of the "chanson de femme" remained and most closely fitted the requirements of the pastourelle. If so, the original stock was so completely overshadowed by the new growth that it disappeared. There are those who think the pastourelle originated in the North, 192 passed into Provence where it was taken over and remodeled, then reintroduced into the North where the new model com- g pletely replaced the old. At any rate, what we have today follows closely the Provencal model and bears little similar ity to the chanson de toile. It does tend to be more earthy and less artificial than the Provenqal pastorela. Some of the pas tour eles are, in fact, quite crude. Jeanroy-*-0 pictures them as a relief from the elegance of the chansons (which include other songs as well as the chansons de toile). It will be recalled that the chansons de toile, if not crude are at least down-to-earth. It can also be noted that the women in the pastourelles— who are shepherdesses, not noble ladies— frequently get the upper hand of their lovers or would-be lovers, which may show an influence resulting from the capability of the heroines of the chansons de toile. This situation of feminine victory exists in the Provencal versions of the pastourelle also, however, and is not even always found in the Northern version. The versification of ®Cf. Wackernagel, op. cit., and Julius Brakelman, "Die Pastourelle in der nord- und stld- franzfJsischen Podsie" in Jahrbuch ftlr romanische und englische Sprache und Litteratur. IX, p. 155-189 and 307-337. 10Origines, op. cit., p. 40. 193 the two genres is quite different. The poet frequently enters into the pastourelle and sometimes taken an active part. This he never does in the chanson de toile. In fact, the two genres show very little in common other than that they are both lyrics with a narrative element and that both evidence a far-away descent from the 11 chansons de femme". The aube is another form which was. either imported from the South or else completely subjugated to Provencal . influence. Like the pastourelle it has little in common with the chanson de toile. There are a few points of similar ity. The stanzas of the aube are regular and there is always a refrain. The pastourelle does not necessarily have a re frain. The rhyme scheme of the aube is not the same as that of the chanson de toile. but is more regular than that of the pastourelle. The subject is always the parting of two lovers at dawn. The viewpoint is most frequently that of the woman, but not always. The estampie is a dance song and has little relation ship to the chanson de toile. The motet is for singing by a number of voices and is quite unlike the chanson de toile. The virelai resembles the chanson de toile only in the use of the refrain, and even this is employed somewhat different ly in the virelai. 194 Another group of lyrics is sometimes called sons d'amour^ -...... i o or chansons dramatiques. These resemble the chanson de toile in the use of the refrain, though some of the sons d 1 amour do not have refrains. It is largely in this group that we find the "mal marine" songs. These latter, however, are not a genre but rather a theme or mati^re. The aube could be called a "mal marine" song in most cases and even the pastourelle occasionally. We have seen that this theme also shows up in several of the chansons de toile. In the sons d 1amour or chansons dramatiques the poet is generally absent or plays no part in the action. He does come in with an expression of his sentiments from time to time, however, which he does not normally do in the chanson de toile. D. Relationship with Other Literatures In other literatures there is nothing corresponding exactly to the chanson de toile in Old French. It will be noted that nothing has been said of the chanson de toile in ■^GrOber, op. cit. 12jeanroy, Origines, op. cit. 195 Provencal literature. Strictly speaking, none exist in the lanque d*oc. However, there is some evidence that there may 13 have been some. In the Jeu de Sainte Agn&s there are three songs, or bits of songs, interpolated in the text which appear to be the beginnings of chansons de toile in the lanque d roc ; El bosc d'Ardena justal palaih Amfos, a la fenestra de la plus auta tor-^ which Agn&s sings to show her lack of fear when she is being forced into the "lupanar", 15 Al pe de la montaina which is sung by none other than Jesus while discoursing with the Archangel Gabriel, and Da pe de la montaina"^ Also sung by Jesus, this time to the Archangel Raphael. Three other interpolations are apparently "chansons de femme" whose verse structure closely resembles that of the chanson de toile. This Jeu de Sainte Aqn&s is a Provencal poem of ^ E d . Alfred Jeanroy (Paris: Champion, 1931). 14Ibid., 1. 383. 15Ibid., 1. 469. 16Ibid., 1. 1073. 196 the fourteenth century and is a curious mixture of prose and poetry and of Latin and Provencal, cast in a dramatic form with lyric passages. The directions are in Latin prose and are followed by long sections in Provencal verse. The directions serve to carry forward the story. The inter polations mentioned (there are sixteen of them in all) are not songs in the same manner as the interpolations in the romans d 1 aventure. They are merely indications of the melodies to be used for the song passages which follow and which are the work of the author of the Jeu de Sainte Agn&s. The music has been preserved in the form of musical notation. In some cases this music is found elsewhere with the text for which it was originally intended. In this way it be comes clear that the citations are only to indicate the tune that was to be used. The customary debut of the chanson de toile can be recognized and in the first selection noted the phraseology is reminiscent of No. IX. There is speculation in Jeanroy's edition that at least this one could be a translation of a northern French chanson de toile. The forest of the Ardennes lies in northern France and present-day Belgium. However, the atmosphere of the Jeu de Sainte Agn&s is so fanciful that not too much can be safely assumed. The locale of the work is supposed to be in Rome in the 197 early Christian era. Unfortunately, none of these particular songs has come down to us in a completed version, and none of those noted is mentioned elsewhere, so we do not have very firm evidence to go on in postulating the existence of the Provencal chanson de toile but it would appear that something in that line did exist at any rate. 1. The Portuguese cantigas d'amigo. The old Portuguese cantigas d 1amigo have been mentioned already. These, like many other lyrics, represent a popular tradition but the forms in which we have them are later forms conceived and executed by poets. They are in the line of the "chanson de femme". They are divided into two large categories. Both of these deal with love and both.are expressed from the viewpoing of the woman. In the first category the poet speaks in his own name. These seem to be later in point of composition and to have been greatly influenced by courtly love lyrics. The second category is the older and purer form. In these poems the girl herself speaks, either to her lover, to her mother, or to a friend. In all cases- she speaks about her love. The tone is melancholy but res trained and not despairing. Parental disapproval, indif ference on the part of the lover, or other obstacles to the 198 love' are mentioned but there is no action to overcome these obstacles. In fact, there is no action. The cantiga d 1 amigo are pure lyrics, not narrative. It can be seen that the subject matter of the cantigas d 1 amigo resembles that of the chansons de toile in many ways. The feminine viewpoint, the obstacles to the love, the con centration on the feelings of the woman, the melancholy atmosphere, all these things recall the chansons de toile. The stanza form does also. It consists of stanzas on a single rhyme and a refrain. The stanzas are shorter than those of the chanson de toile, though, and there is an intri cate pattern of repetition that is not found in the chanson de toile. The cantigas d * amigo. like the chanson de toile, treats one incident and does not involve itself in reference to a number of occasions or events. There is little reason for assuming that one of these genres influenced the other. The cantigas d 1amigo, especially the later ones, make frequent reference to French and Provencal poetry, but not to the chanson de toile. It is much more probable that they both stemmed from a common base and have maintained many of the same inherited characteristics. It should also be noted that the Portuguese poems are much calmer and more static than the French ones. They are not narrative, though, and 199 there is no need for the violence of action that sometimes 17 occurs in the chanson de toile. 2. The Berman Minnesinger. The chanson de toile seems to have had no luck in Germany, which about the end of the period of popularity of the chanson de toile was so receptive to French and Provencal influence. Perhaps it was this latter influence which caused the undoing of the chanson de toile. Just about the time it might have been introduced and become popular in Germany courtly love became all the rage (in poetry) and the Minnesinger seem to have ignored the more homely chansons de toile for the exotic products of the Midi. Although it is never possible to set a date for the introduction of a concept of such expanse as courtly love, in this case the year 1184 is certainly of great significance. In that year the Emperor Barbarossa held a court at Mainz to celebrate the dubbing of his sons as knights. It was a magnificant spectacle and included much singing and reciting, both by Minnesinger and by jongleurs from other lands. The location of Mainz in the Rhineland with proximity to France, and in particular to the literarily productive regions of ^ 1 am indebted to Jeanrov's Origines. op. cit., for most of the information on the cantigas d 1 amigo contained herein. 200 Lorraine, Champagne, Picardy, and the Artois, and a relative proximity to the Limousin and other regions where Provencal literature flourished, favored the introduction of the new types and forms. So csuccessful were the new forms that if the chansons de toile ever had any success in Germany at all they were quickly eclipsed under the competition from the flood of courtly and Arthurian material which suffused German litera ture at this time. Their nearest equivalent is not the Minnesinger but the Spielmansepos, which resembles the chanson de toile only in its down-to-earth qualities. The old Winileodos were women's songs and songs of love, but they have disappeared completely and we can only speculate as to their nature. They are probably a branch of the same type of poetry from which the chansons de toile sprung, but in the absence of even so much as a citation from one of them it is impossible to make a good guess as to their real nature. Comparing them to the chansons de toile holds a certain fascination for the imagination, but cannot be substantiated due to our lack of knowledge of the real nature of the Wiiiileodos. German spinning songs are the product of a much later period (mostly the nineteenth century) and have no connection with the chansons de toile. 201 Caution must be exercised in thinking that the chansons de toile were never known at all in Germany. Thoedor Prings cites an old German translation of a stanza of No. VII, but says: Aber ein umschliessenden ritterlich-sprechen Rahmen, eine Romanze, kennt das fruhe unepische Deutschland nicht. Ftir Marcabrus Gedicht ist mit Recht die Bezeichnung Romanze abgelehnt worden. Zu dieser Bezeichnung fuhrte der epische Rahmen mit Begegnung und GesprSch. Prom this it can be deduced that the chanson de toile. which was already a bit old-fashioned at home was known but was not imitated to any extent in Germany. There are some similarities to it in the early work of the Minnesinger. Their songs are frequently put into the mouth of a woman also, but such similarities are not sufficient to cause us to believe that there was imitation of the chansons de toile involved. The similarities are due either to a common but remote ancestor, to the use of forms and customs known to many literatures of the time, or even to mere coincidence. 3. The English and Scotch ballads. The relationship of the chanson de toile to the old English and Scotch ballads is a very interesting one. Howard S. Jordan's study, "The 180p. cit., p. 7. 202 Old French Chansons d'Histoire as a Possible Origin of the English Popular Ballad',1, has already been noted. He admits the greatest difficulty in working with the ballad is decid ing just what a ballad is. In fact, the study begins: The origin of the English ballad has long been a sub ject of theory and conjecture.*-9 and this is an understatement. A glance at Child's collect 20 tion will show that there is a great variety not only in subject matter but in form. This makes it extremely difficult to define them. William Paton Ker defines the ballad as: . . . a lyrical narrative poem . . . either popular in its origin, or using the common forms of popular poetry, and fitted for oral circulation through the whole of a community.21 Jordan adds, quite helpfully, that there is also a dramatic element. The ballad has, in fact, numerous elements; so many that Goethe said of the ballad "singer" (poet): Er bedient sich daher aller drei Grundarten der Poesie, urn sunSchst auszudrtlcken, was die Einbild- ungskraft erregen, den Geist besch£ftigen soil; er kann lyrisch, episch, dramatisch beginnen und nach Belieben, die Formen wechselnd, fortfahren, zum Ende hineilen oder es weit hinausschieben. Der l90p. cit., p. 367. 200p. cit. 21Form and Style in Poetry (London: Macmillan, 1928), p. 3. 203 Refrain, das Wiederkehren endesselben Schlussklanges, gibt dieser Dichtart den entschiedenen lyrischen Character.22 It might be noted that this quotation is made by GriJber in speaking of No. X, which he obviously includes as a ballad. Jordan also approaches the chanson de toile to the old English ballad. Both are narrative lyrics and both have a dramatic quality. Both are simple and unpretentious. Both have a limited number of characters. Both relate a single incident, pared down to its essentials and both relate it with a few bold strokes. Both obtain brevity and dramatic effect by centering attention on an essential moment in the story when all is revealed, leaving the hearer to supply the rest of the story from his imagination. Both.rare amoral and do not preach or instruct. However, let us look at the differences before we decide that the old English ballad and the French chanson de toile are essentially the same thing. The French song is limited to the theme of a woman's love? the English ballad is not. Love iS frequently a theme in the ballads, as it is in all lyric poetry, but it is not the only one. Ballads may relate incidents in no way connected with love. The 22 Quoted by Grfiber, op. cit., p. 23, note 15. 204 chanson de toile is always shown from the woman's viewpoint. This attitude is quite common in ballads, but by no means required. The poet is absent from the chanson de toile and does not express his own feelings, only those of the char acters in the story. Again this situation is quite usual in the ballad, but not a necessary part of it. A ballad may even be told in the first person as if the experience and the emotions were the poet's own. This could not happen in a chanson de toile, or at least never does. The chanson de toile always has a refrain (even the smallest of the frag ments), while the ballad may or may not have one. The chanson de toile has a definite stanza from while the ballad comes in a number of different ones. The so-called "ballad stanza" is not found in all ballads by any means, even the oldest ones that we know. There are only three verse lengths found in the chanson de toile. The ballad has many, and they are quite varied: some long, some short. But above all, the ballad must be designed to be handed down by oral trans mission, even if it was not composed orally at the moment of "its origin. The chanson de toile may have been designed for oral presentation (singing) and it is most probable that there was an oral tradition before its present form, but the chanson de toile as we have it today is a work of art designed 205 to be executed by skillful artisans and to be passed on from master to pupil rather than just from singer to singer. There is a folk quality to the ballads, even the ones that we know were composed in their present form by professional poets, which is the antithesis of the art of the chansons de toile. In addition, although the ballads may treat of nobility, there is never the confirmed acceptance of upper class status that pervades the chansons de toile. Most of the above can be resumed by saying that the ballad has much more freedom than the chanson de toile. But this is a very important difference and quite characteristic of the two genres. Jordan thinks that the differences in form can be explained by the time lapses between the chanson de toile and the ballad. The earliest ballad that we know, the Judas, was written down in the present form in the thirteenth century. Only eleven ballads can definitely be traced back farther than 1600. If the chanson de toile pass ed over the Channel this must have happened prior to 1300 when the genre was already becoming extinct in Prance. It probably took place a good half century before when the form was still vital in Prance. This chronology does give plenty of time for a verse form to change, particularly one that is being passed around orally by relatively unlettered singers. 206 Jordan assumes that the chanson de toile passed from the upper classes in Prance while it was the popular diversion among that sod£. group. Most of the upper classes in England still spoke French as their native tongue at that time. Then it began to filter down to the people. The style changed in France and the Frenchified nobility in England dropped it in favor of the now up-to-date courtly style. The people in England were less sensitive to style changes and less French anyhow. Furthermore, they had by this time trans lated the chansons de toile into their own language and adapted them to their own uses and abilities. For instance, assonance would have to be dropped altogether since English popular poetry never uses it. This process continued with its perpetrators blissfully unaware, or uncaring, that the style in France had changed. 4. Other ballads. The chanson de toile was also in fluential in Scandinavia. It is known that there was a great deal of French influence in the medieval poetry of Scandinavia. Jeanroy has found a version of an old French rondet as far away as Iceland,^ and Ker identifies it for us.24 gut the 230ricrines, p. 415, note 1. 240p. cit., p. 9. 207 closest relationship is with Denmark. The Danish seem to have modeled their medieval literature on the French rather than on the German. The few pieces that were translated from the German are clearly distinguished as imports, while the French influence is so subtle as to be intrinsic in the literature and even quite difficult to ferret out. Paul Verrier's article on "Belle Aiglentine et Petite Christine" shows the relationship between No. IV and that old Danish cycle of songs. There is not one "Petite Christine" but a whole series of them. Versions are also found in Norwegian and in Swedish. The dance tradition of the chanson & carole was still alive in the Faroe Islands uhtil quite recently,2® including a dance version of the Roland legend entitled the "Ronceval". E. Possible Folk Origins of the Chanson de Toile Was the chanson de toile of popular origin? Certainly the ones we have now were not composed by the people in a collective cteative effort. We have already seen a number of factors which indicate this. They are too aristocratic 250P . cit. 26Ker, op. cit., p. 10. 208 in tone, it is true that much folk literature imitates upper class life. The heroines of any number of tales of very modest literary pretensions and of undoubted folk origin are princesses. The beautiful princess and the hand some prince a® stock figures in folk tales.27 However, these folk tales and poems show an awe and a far-away appreciation of aristocratic life. The chansons de toile take the upper class milieu for granted. They show a first hand familiar ity with it that folk literature never does. Also, they are too difficult to compose and to sing to be folk poems or folk music. But there may have been predecessors which could have been. Whether they actually were folk songs or not is again out in the realm of conjecture. Their basic themes: the abandoned woman, the "mal marine", the young girl pre vented by her parents from marrying the man of her choice, are all found in folk poetry. They are also found in the plays of Scribe and Augier, which are anything but folk poetry— or even poetry. They are common themes, used by the people and by sophisticated artisans, as well. Friedrich 28 Gennrich says the chansons de toile are of popular origin because of their refrains. These refrains, he says, were 27Stith Thompson, The Folktale (New York: Holt, Rine hart & Winston, 1946). \ 28^ .. Op. cit. 209 probably broken off popular songs much older than the chansons de toile themselves. He thinks the refrains were selected by the poets and the songs written around them. An examina tion of the text of the songs does, in fact, tend to con firm the impression that the songs were written to sub stantiate the refrains rather than the refrains being supplied to fit the songs. The emotional content of the song is so succinctly expressed in the refrain that we have every reason to believe that it was probably the genesis of the song hnd that the rest was written or composed to illustrate the emotional situation evoked in the refrain. Among other things, this would help to explain the error in naming the hero in No. VI which has been mentioned before. However, whether or not the refrains themselves were remnants of much older folksongs or the work of trained poets, perhaps even the same poet who elaborated them into chansons de toile, has not yet been proved very clearly. It is, of course, the main thesis of Jeanroy's Origines. so often referred to herein, except that Jeanroy has dealt with the whole of French lyric poetry of the Middle Ages rather than just the chansons de toile. 210 29 Scheludko sees a folk motif in the frequent meetings between girl and boy near a fountain or at least near water. No. XIII, Gaiete and Oriour, has many folk touches, he says, even aside from the meeting by the water. He cites the theme of the two sisters found in Grimm's tale No. 96. Even the traditional beginning of so many of the chansons de toile has folk touches: Ein volkstumliches Motiv der Romanzen ist nattlrlich auch noch das von dem MSdchen, das mit Sticken beschaftigt und ganz in Gedariken an den Liebsten versuriken ist, wahrend die Mutter sie wegen ihrere ungehiJrigen Liebe schilt.39 Ol Schossig A says they show folk influences which are evident in linguistic usages, in particular the names of the birds used which are the popular rather than the erudite ones. He finds them art songs rather than folk poetry on the whole, 32 though Voretsch considers them popular in content and deri-ves many other narrative types, particularly those dealing with the "mal marine" from them. Storost33 cites the musical structure as evidence that they are not and could not have been folk poetry and says their metric structure was strongly 290p. cit. 30Ibid.. p. 216. 310p. cit., p. 183. 320p. cit., p. 148. 33 Op. cit., p. 70. 211 influences by fchurch music. Charles Oulmont rather skirts the entire question and says: ... la simplicity de la forme, le caract&re des refrains prouvent que les chansons £taient quasi populaires.34 Philippe Van Tieghem denies their popular origin and classes them as: ... un exercise subtil o& des po&tes raffin^s cherchent S. retrouver la simplicity des temps passys.35 This sounds like an echo of Paral's theories on their origins. Jean Rousselot takes the bull firmly by the horns and says: ... poysie populaire et poysie yiaboree ont des sources identiques ... la poysie populaire et la poesie yiaborye ne font q u ' u n e . 3 6 The digest of the whole controversy would seem to lie somewhere in the region of thinking that the chansons de toile contain folk motifs, show archaic characteristics in their language which could well be the legacy from a far- off origin in folk songs, and use situations which are found in folk poetry but are also found elsewhere. The product ^ L a poysie frangaise du moyen ctge, (Paris: Mercure de Prance, 1913), p. 253. ^ Histoire de la littyrature fran^aise, (Paris: Arth^rne Fayard, 1949), p. 45. 36"L e s sources populaires de la poysie" in Age Nouveau. No. 98, p. 83. 212 as we have it today is the work of a conscious and trained artist drawing on the materials he has in his artistic baggage. But he was one of the folk originally himself, and these materials probably contained much that was folkloric in origin. F. The Chanson de Toile after the XIIIth Century The revival of the chanson de toile by Audefroi le Bcfrtard in the thirteenth century was not followed by a general revival of interest in the genre. Arthur Cullman thinks they represent the last glimmer of folk lyrics: Audefroi*s Wirken bedeutet ftir die franzdsische Literatur des eigentlichen Mittelalters ein neues und zugleich das letzte Aufflackern der alten echt volksttimlichen lyrische P o e s i e . 3 7 Aside from the traces we find here and there in other literary forms or in other literatures the production of chansons de toile seems to have stopped with the death of Audefroi. Why? There is no real way of answering such a question. We do know that the great surge of interest in the Provencal literature and in courtly love drove practically everything else out of French literature for a long time. The new 3 7 Arthur Cullman, Die Lieder und Romanzen von Audefroi le Bastard (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1914), p. 8. 213 attitude toward women and the new conception of love in poetry made the heroines of the chansons de toile and their love affairs terribly old-fashioned. We have seen also that the formula of the chanson de toile is a very restrictive one. it would not be possible to go on elaborating on the few themes and attitudes permitted in the chanson de toile indefinitely. The attempts of Audefroi show up what lay ahead in that direction. The outlook on love which is intrinsic and necessary to the production of chansons de toile could hardly be adapted to the Provencal concept of courtly love. There is nothing distant about the love of the chanson de toile, or if there is then that distance is the thing to be eliminated. That distance is the thing more to be desired than all else in the courtly concept of love. Jaufr£ Rudel dies when he reaches Tripoli. The two concepts are completely unreconcilable. The stronger and more popular survived. After Audefroi and after the advent of courtly love the chansons de toile appear to have vanished for several centuries. There are glimmers: a verse from one of them which las otherwise been lost: Op Aye se seit en haute tour ^ A d a m de la Halle ou Adam le Bossu, Le jeu de la feuill^e, ed. Ernest Langlois (Parisla Champion, 1951), 1. 1025 and Introduction. 214 is sung rather satirically in the Jeu d'Adam ou de la Feuill^e by Adam de la Halle, which was presented in Arras about 1276 or 1277 when the popularity of the chanson de toile must have been already on the wane. Then silence. The manuscripts in which the songs are found were known. The one containing the Guillaume de Dole and consequently five 39 of the songs was cited in 1581 and again in 1584. When this manuscript was sold to the Vatican in 1690 it was examined by two French scholars of the day, one of whom found the Roman "autre que le vulgaire" and the other of whom ignored it completely. The Chansonnier Franqais de Saint-Germain-des-Pr4 s, which contains most of the other songs was mentioned as a manuscript several times over the centuries, but no one seems to have read our chansons de toile until Paulin Paris became interested in the manuscript in 1831. In any case, these songs were made to be sung and when no one was singing them they were dead for all practical purposes. This state lasted for nearly five centuries. 1. The importance of the chanson de toile. The import ance of the chanson de toaLe is seen at the outset in the fact that these songs comrpise the oldest known. expressipns. of 39Douglas Labaree Buffum, op. cit., Introduction. 215 real lyric feeling in the French language. They do not as such represent the end of a line, nor do they actually re present the beginning of one. There were other lyrics be fore them; we simply do not have them any more. They exist if an artistic work once created never ceases to exist, but we are not in touch with them. The chansons de toile are the middle point, the crossroads where the older types of French poetry, represented by the chansons de geste on the one hand and the popular poetry of which we have only scraps, refrains, bits of dancing songs, on the other met. The newer poetry, the romans d»aventure, the romans mondains, the courtly lyrics, the Arthurian romances then took off from that point. Our Erembors and Argentines are the pause halfway between "la belle Aude" and Yseut la Blonde. THE OLD FRENCH "CHANSONS DE TOILE" Translation I. Fair Aye is seated at the feet of her wicked mother, on her knees an English coverlet of striped silk, and with her thread she makes fine stitches in it. Hey! hey! love from another land, you have taken my heart by surprise and bound it up. Down her face hot tears were coursing, for she is beaten in the morning and in the evening because she loves a soldier from another land. Hey! hey! love from another land, you have taken my heart by surprise and bound it up. • • • (fragment) II. The daughter and the mother are sitting at their embroidery frames, with a golden threat they are making golden crosses. The mother, who had a gentle heart, spoke Such a good love fair Aude made for Doon! 216 217 — My daughter, learn to sew and to spin, and to embroider golden crosses on the hem of your garments. It is better that you forget the love of Doon. Such a good love fair Aude made for Doon. • • • (fragment) III. When it comes about in May, which is said to have long days, that the Franks of France return from the King's court, Raynaut returns leading the front rank; thus he passed before the house of Erembor before he even deigned to raise his head. Hey friend Raynaut! Fair Erembor at the window that day was holding a striped silken coverlet of many colors on her knees; she saw the Franks of France returning from court, and she saw Raynaut in the very front rank; aloud she called to him: Hey friend Raynaut! 218 — Friend Raynaut, this day I have seen that you passed along by my father's tower, you would have been grieved if I had not spoken to you. — — You are wrong there, daughter of an emperor, you loved another, you had better forget about us. Hey friend Raynaut! Milord Raynaut, I shall justify myself for that; before a hundred damsels, on the saints' relics, I shall swear to you, before thirty ladies whom I shall bring with me, that I did not ever love any man outside of you yourself. Accept the forfeit and I shall embrace you. — Hey friend Raynaut! Count Raynaut went up the steps, s broad thru the shoulders, narrow at the waist, blond hair he had, close cropped, curly; in no land was there so fair a youth. He sees Erembor and begins to weep Hey friend Raynaut! Count Raynaut went up into the tower and sat on a bed embroidered with flowers, beside him sat fair Erembor. Then they began all over again their first loves. Hey friend Raynaut! 219 IV* Pair Aiglentine, in the royal bedchamber, was sewing on a shirt before her lady. until then she did know what it was when good love enflamed her. Now hear here how fair Aiglentine conducted herself. Before her mother she was sewing and cutting; but she did not sew as well as she was wont to sew: she was ill at ease, so that she pricked her finger. Her mother very soon noticed this. Now hear here how fair Aiglentine conducted herself. — Fair Aiglentine, undo your surcoat, I wish to see your gentle body underneath — — I shall not do it, my lady, the cold is deadly. — Now hear here how fair Aiglentine conducted herself. — Pair Aiglentine, what is it that is harming you so that I see you grow pale and become large? — — Sweet my lady, to you I cannot deny it: I have loved a gentle-born soldier, 220 brave Henri, who has done so much to win renown. If ever you loved me, have pity on me. — Now hear here how fair Aiglentine conducted herself. — Fair Aiglentine, will this Henri take you? — I do not truly know, my lady, because I have never asked him. -- Fair Aiglentine, then turn away from here. Tell all this to him, that I ask of Henri if he will take you to wife or leave you thus. — Willingly, my lady, — the fair one replied. Now hear here how fair Aiglentine conducted herself. Fair Aiglentine turned away from that place and came straightway to Henri's dwelling. Count Henri was lying on his bed. Now hear what the fair maid said to him. Now hear here how fair Aiglentine conducted herself. Henri heard this, and became very joyful because of it. He called up as many as twenty horsemen; . carried off the fair one to his country 221 and married her, made her a rich countess. Much joy had he of this Count Henri when he had fair Aiglentine for his own. V. Lovely Doette is sitting at the window, she is reading a book, but her heart is not in it, she is thinking once mace of her friend Doon who has gone to another country to take part in the tournaments. And now I am sad because of it. A squire at the steps of the hall dismounted, and loosened his mail, Lovely Doette devours the steps, she does not think that she will hear bad news. And now I am sad because of it. Lovely Doette asked him at once: — Where is my lord whom I have not seen for so long a time? — He was so grieved that he wept from pity, whereupon lovely Doette fainted. And now I am sad because of it. 222 Lovely Doette, upon rising from her swoon, saw the squire, adressed herself to him. In her heart she was sad and afflicted because of her lord whom she will see no more. And now I am sad because of it. Lovely Doette began to ask of him: — Where is my lord whom I cannot help loving so much? — — In God's name, my lady, I do not wish to hide it from you any longer: my lord is dead, he was killed in the tournament. And now I am sad because of it. Lovely Doette puts on her widow's weeds. — How unlucky you were there, Count Do, the free and noble. For your love I shall put on the hair shirt, and I shall not have miniver fur on my body. And now I am sad because of it: for you I shall become a nun in St. Paul's church. For you I shall build an abbey such that, when comes the day that its completion be celebrated, anyone who comes to us there who has betrayed love shall never find the entrance to the minster. And now I am sad because of it: for you I shall become a nun in St. Paul's church. 223 Lovely Doette began to build her abbey, which was very large and will soon become moreso: it will attract to itself all those men and women who know how to suffer punishment and pain because of love. And now I am sad because of it: for you I shall become a nun in St. Paul's church. VI. Fair Doe is sitting in the breeze: she is waiting for Doon under the hawthorne tree? she complhins and regrets so strongly her love who comes so slowly. — God! what a noble servitor you have in Doon! God! what a liege! God! what a baron! Never shall I love lest it be Doon. How laden you are with blossoms, how flowered you are; by your side my friend pledged his love; but he does not wish to come to me. — God! what a noble servitor you have in Doon! God! what a liege! God! what a baron-! Never shall I love lest it be Doon. ' • . • • (fragment) VII. Pair Yolanz was seated in her chamber, she was making a robe from a good silken serge, she wished to send it to her love. Sighing she sangothis song: — Lord, how sweet is the name of love, never thought I to feel sorrow from it. Sweet fair beloved, now I wish to send you a robe in sign of great love. Through God I pray to you, have pity on me. — She could not stand, she sits on the floor. — Lord, how sweet is the name of love, never thought I to feel sorrow from it. At these words and at this speech her beloved entered the house. She saw him, she lowered her chin, she could not speak, she did not say yes or no. — Lord, how swefet is the name of love, never thought I to feel sorrow from it. 225 — My fair lady, you have forgotten about me. — She hears him, she smiles at him, sighing she holds out to him her lovely arms; so sweetly she draws near to him to throw her arms around his neck. — Lord, how sweet is the name of love, never thought I to feel sorrow from it. — My sweet fair love, I know not how to flatter you, but with a fine heart and without pretense I love you, when it shall please you, then may you embrace me, within your arms,I wish to go to sleep. — — Lord, how sweet is the name of love, never thought I to feel sorrow from it. Her lover takes her into his arms, they sit down alone on a fine bed; fair Yolanz embraces him tightly, with many laughing amorous feints lies down with him in the center of the bed. — Lord, how sweet is the name of love, never thought I to feel sorrow from it. VTII. Pair Yolanz in a quiet room spreads a silken coverlet over her knee's: 226 this is a golden thread, the other is silk. Her wicked mother scolds her. — I am scolding you because of that, fair Yolanz. Pair Yolanz, I am scolding you: you are my daughter, I must do it. — — My lady mother, and for what are you doing it? — — I shall tell it to you, by my faith. — I am scolding you because of that, fair Yolanz. — Mother, for what are you scolding me? is it because of my sewing or my cutting, or my spinning or my embroidery, or is it for being too sleepy? — I am scolding you because of that, fair Yolanz. — Not because of your sewing nor your cutting, nor your spinning nor your embroidery, nor is it for being too sleepy; but you talk with the knight too much. I am scolding you because of that, fair Yolanz. 227 You talk too much to the Count Mahi, your husband is unhappy because of it: he is hurt by it, I swear it to you; do it no more, I beg of you. I am scolding you because of that, fair Yolanz. — If my husband had sworn it, he and all his relatives, no matter how greatly it is going to hurt them, nevertheless, I shall not stop loving him. — Take care, fair Yolanz. IX. in a tall tower sits fair Yzabel, her lovely blond head thrust out of an opening in the parapet, tears are dampening the panels of her cloak. Ay my love! because of wicked words I am far from my land. -- Alas, — she says, — what great distress I am in! I have been given to a man from a far country: I can expect no help from my friend. — Ay my love! because of wicked words I am far from my land. 228 — Alas, — she says, — what great sorrow there is! I was called the daughter of an emperor, and they have made a low-born man my lord. — Ay my love! because of wicked words I am far from my land. Her lady-in-waiting comes to stand before her. — My lady, what is wrong that you are crying thus? — — It is with good cause. — — Do you not deign to love? — Ay my love! because of wicked words I am far from my land. — If I knew a well-born knight who was praised for his feats of arms and esteemed, I should love him wholeheartedly and willingly. Ay my love! because of wicked words I am far from my land. — My lady, I know such a knight who is praised for his feats of arms and esteemed, he would love you, no matter whom it might displease. Ay my love! because of wicked words I am far from my land. 229 X. In a garden hard by a fountain, whose wavelets are clear and whose sands are white, a king's daughter sat with her hand on her cheeky, sighing she recalled her sweet beloved. Ay Count Guy, my friend! your love takes from me all solace and laughter. Count Guy, my love, what evil fortune! my father has given me to an old man, who has put me in this house and shut me up, I cannot go out evening or morning. Ay Count Guy, my friend! your love takes from me all solace and laughter. The wicked husband heard her lament, entered the garden, took off his belt, he beat her so much that she was bruised and blood-stained; she nearly expired at his feet. Ay Count Guy, my friend! your love takes from me all solace and laughter. The wicked husband when he had mistreated her, repented of it, because he had done a foolish thing, because he was still a part of her father's retinue 230 he knew full well that she was the daughter of a king no matter what he said. Ay Count Guy, my friend! your love takes from me all solace and laughter. The fair one raised herself from her swoon, called on God with earnest thought: — Grant unto me, Lord, that I be not forgotten, that my love return before evening. — Ay Count Guy, my friend! your love takes from me all solace and laughter. And Our Lord listened well to her plea: here is her beloved who comforts her. They sat under the leafy bough; there she shed many a tear because of love. Ay Count Guy! your love takes from me all solace and laughter. Xt. Fair Euriaus is seated, she is shut up all alone, she neither drinks nor eats, nor does she rest, often she complains of fatigue, often she reasons with herself, 231 because she does not dare speak of it to her love Renaut. Often she cries aloud: — Ay, Lord, shall I ever see my dear friend Renaut again? — • • • (fragment) XII. Now Easter the beautiful comes in April; the woods are in flower, the fields grow green again"; the sweet waters withdraw to their accustomed streams; the birds sing in the evening and in the morning; Who has love should not forget them, he should go and come there often. — Already Aigline and Count Guy love each other. Guy loves Aigline, Aigline loves Guy. Hard by a castle which is called Beauclair in a short while great festivities were taking place. Certain damsels were going there to sing and dance, certain squires were going there to make merry at the jousts, certain knights were going there as guards of honor; certain ladies were going there to disport their physical charms. Fair Aigline has herself taken there; 232 she has put on a rob of scarlet silk which drags over the fields for two ells. Guy loves Aigline, Aigline loves Guy. • • • (fragment) XIII. Saturday in the evening, the week is drawing to a close, Gaiete and Oriour, true sisters, go hand in hand to bathe in the fountain. The breeze is blowing and the branches flutter: those who love each other sweetly sleep. Young squire Gerard is returning from practicing with the lance, when he saw Gaiete by the fountain he took her between his arms, softly pressed her. The breeze is blowing and the branches flutter: those who love each other sweetly sleep. — When you have drawn the water, Oriour, go back from whence we came, you know well the town; I shall remain with Gerard who esteems me highly. — The breeze is blowing and the branches flutter: those who love each other sweetly sleep. 233 Then Oriour goes away pale and sorrowing? she leaves them weeping, her heart sighing, when she does not take back her sister Gaiete with her. The breeze is blowing and the branches flutters those who love each other sweetly sleep. — Alas, — says Oriour, — how unlucky I was born! I have left my sister in the valley. Young squire Gerard is taking her away into his country. The breeze is blowing and the branches flutter: those who love each other sweetly sleep. Young squire Gerard and Gaiete turned away? they made their way straight to the citadel? as soon as they arrived he married her. The breeze is blowing and the branches flutter: those who love each other sweetly sleep. XIV. Oriolanz on the high terrace sighing takes to tears and regrets the absence of Helier her love: — Beloved, traitors and slanderers keep you too far away from me. Lord, how slowly comes happiness to the one who longs for it. My love, fair sweet Helier, how I remember the embraces, the caresses and sweet kisses, the sweet conversation without disturbance, how I can grow tired of living! Lord, how slowly comes happiness to the one who longs for it. My love, I made you go away from me more than the slanderers. Whenever I made my love difficult for you I made a stranger of you. Now I am receiving such a bitter reward for Lord, how slowly comes happiness to the one who longs for it. Love, at night on my couch while sleeping, I think I am embracing you and when I fail to do so on waking nothing on earth can help me. Then I begin again to yearn. Lord, how slowly comes happiness to the one who longs for it. Beloved, now I wish to pray to God, if ever he is to counsel me, that I see you without delay. But to this there are more hindrances than one has great desire for. — Lord, how slowly comes happiness to the one who longs for it. While the fair maid was making her cries, Helier left the court, he came on horseback across an uncultivated field, so that he half heard her soft lament; he is greatly overjoyed by it.- Lord, how slowly comes happiness to the one who longs for it. The fair maid raised her face, and saw that it was Helier her love. She took him to kiss and embrace him so that she held him between her fair arms, and there she played and laughfed full well. Lord, how slowly comes happiness tp the one who longs for it. 236 Oriolanz said to him: — My love, in spite of evil gossipmongers, you have now obtained me. Now they will talk as much as they wish and we shall have all our pleasures Lord, how slowly comes happiness to the one who longs for it. I do not know what more to propose to you. Thus it happens to all overs; and I, who made up this song, pensive by the side of the sea, commend to God fair Aelis. Lord, how slowly comes happiness to the one who longs for it. XV. Fair Amelot was spinning alone in her room, she began to sing, for she recalled her love; she sang aloud and she spoke of her lover by name. She took little heed, her mother was listening to her. God, give me Garin for my husband, ' my sweet love. 237 Garin my love, you have loved me with a true heart always, and I have loved you so much that I will have none'dttaer than you as a husband, rather shall I live thus virgin forever. God, give me Garin for my husband, my sweet love. I shall kill myself if another than Garin has me, or I shall do what loving would teach me. If I do not have Garin, one or the other will happen; may God give him to me, it would avoid all these evils. God, give me Garin for my husband, my sweet love. God, if you have pity for a maid consent that I have Garin for my husband. I shall kill myself if another is given to me and if I die in this way, you will be too cruel to me. God, give me Garin for my husband, my sweet love. Her mother came in, sat down before her, besseched her strongly: — Daughter, take as a husband Duke Girard, or Count Henri. — 238 — By the Lord, mother, much better to live forever thus. God, give me Garin for my husband, my sweet love. By the Lord, mother, I am too fearful about taking a husband: it is an action about which many complain, because if he does not love me he would not make my love glow, beside him I should live in shame and sorrow. God, give me Garin for my husband, my sweet love. Taking a husband is a permanent thing not a bargain you abandon when you repent of it; It is held within you, be it ugly or attractive; though it make you unhappy, though it live in great sorrow. God, give me Garin for my husband, my sweet love. — By the Lord, my daughter, your father has often been angered because of this. — — Mother, it is a great sin; I must be hated by you that you torture me so to take a husband, and you are driving me away from here. God, give me Garin for my husband, my swefet love. 239 Amelot heard what her mother said, that her father wished to give her a husband. So softly she began to lament, her heart failed her, she let out a cry. God, give me Garin for my husband, my sweet love. In her mother's lap Amelot fainted. Lord, what compassion her mother had in her heart because of it! Weeping all the while she kissed her, comforted her to get her to stand up. God, give me Garin for my husband, my sweet love. The mother saw her child anguished and softly said to her: — My daughter, be of good cheer ; you love Garin, you shall have him as a husband, if God aid me, he is valiant and worthy. God, give me Garin for my husband, my sweet love. The mother sends at once for brave Garin; she gave him so much silver and fine gold, that the lover and the beloved were brought together by the leave of her lord Lancelin. Thus Amelot soon had Garin her love. 240 XVI. In the new time of spring when the hawthorne flowered, the gracious Argentine married Count Guy. So happy were they arm in arm in intimacy that they had five sons, then he showed hate for her because he loved her maid Sabine better. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. The count loved her so much for her beauty and cherished her so that he could not leave her nor keep away from her. So much did she appeal to his heart that he begged for her love, that he came to her to plead his suit, but this time he sees her cruel and proud. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. — Sabine, — said the Count, — your fair body pleases me; I beg of you your love, mine I give you, and if you deny it to me, you have put me in torment. The beauty replied to him: — God does not permit that my youth be frittered away in concubinage. — She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. 241 Sabine, I find you so gracious and noble that I do not wish to draw away from your love ever; if you wish to do my will and be good to me, there is not a man in my suite whose eyes, if he wished to say anything evil about it, I would not have put out. — She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. The Count gave and promised so much to the beauty that he took from her the fair name of maiden. He had his benefit and his pleasure of the girl. The lady observed it, and spoke to her lord about it; her heart was almost dying within her bosom. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. The lady, sighing, showed her courage: — Milord, by God's grace, you have done me much dishonor, when you keep a woman in concubinage in preference to me; I wonder why you are shaming me so, since there was never foolishness nor outrage in me. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. 242 Argente, you have shown your way of thinking clearly; I command you to get out of my country, away from my sight, so that you never make entrance into it at any time; because if you are seen or encountered there, your life will be forfeit at the time. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. Argente stood up, whether she wished it or not, weeping she took leave, sorrowing and with a heavy heart; she begged all the barons to aid her children; then kissed them, weeping, and embraced them; when it was time to part from them, she was almost out of her mind. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. The lady, collapsed completely because of the sorrow that she felt. When she was able to pick herself up she went her way sorrowing. Her heart never ceased sighing and weeping; the tears from her heart gushed so abundantly that her mantle was damp from them and her cloak of ermine. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. 243 So far did this lady wander and push forward that the fair dame came straightway into Germany. So it came about that she was seen in the court of the Emperor. She conducted herself so well before the Empress that she gladly took her into her service. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. Argente the gentle was of such noble demeanor that for her great worth each one loved and esteemed her. The beautiful lady was so learned in all tasks that she became mistress over all the other ladies-in-waiting, in such a way that she was not blamed or reproached for anything. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. Now Argente the prudent rendered such great service that God gave great honor to her handsome sons so that they were knights of great renown; because God gave valor and goodness to them, and they always hated and refused aril. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. 244 They were filled with great goodness, with honor and generosity: Virtues which then banish wrongdoing and sloth. She summoned them and guided and taught them and directed them, so that they served the Emperor by their great valor; and he parted from them sadly and approached them gladly. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. So valiant and worthy and of such good service were the brothers that the Emperor loved them very much and believed them and esteemed them. And God who is the bestower of benefactions to men made them know that Argentine was their mother and that they were her sons and Count Guy their father. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. When the lady recognized her handsome children her heart was so filled with joy that she almost fainted. She would not say a single word for a whole kingdom; they clung together as if their souls were departing; beside her sat her children on a bench. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. 245 i The lady got great joy from her sons, and the children from her. So full was their joy that the whole court took part in the enjoyment. Then they declared two weeks' feasting because of this, that they might have freedom from all cares. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. The children made the very great joy of their mother, then they asked leave to make their own ways, with great sadness the Emperor gives it and grants it to them. The Empress sends them two donkeys laden with fine gold, and the Emperor as much just before he sees them off. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. Then Argente and her household set out so that she came to her country or her barony. The sons made peace between them and set it up so that nevermore was there discord nor wrong there; and Sabine was banished forever from the land. She who has a union with an evil husband often comes out of it with a broken heart. 246 XVII. Pair Beatris is seated in the chamber of gold, she is deploring her lot, weeping she draws her threads. — Good Lord, counsel me, true Father of Jesus Christ, because I am pregnant of Hugo, so that I cry aloud, and Duke Henri is to take me as his wife. — Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. — Alas, — she says softly, — what can I become? How will I dare to appear before the duke? Because I shall not let any man touch me or have pleasure of me other than Hugo, if He let me get out of this. He should remember me well and think about me. -- Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. — Afflicted, without counsel, how I can hate the day that I first made the acquaintance of Hugo and loved him, because of that I shall lose the esteem and the honor of the duke who wishes that I take him for my lord at once: I should rather that he have me, if it please God, who has had the flower. Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. 247 Thus while the fair one with the heavy heart was lamenting her fate a squire who had great friendship for her heard her? he came before her, he had great pity for her. When Beatris saw him her heart was comforted, since she had his good will and confidence. Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. — Brother, you have heard well my story? go tell Hugo for me without stopping that I shall wait for him in my father*s garden under the sweetbriar bush. Take care that you do not tarry in taking care of this. — Fair maid, — he said -- everything shall be as you wish it. Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. The squire went until he found Hugo. He told him about the life of Beatris, in a clear fashion, with a few words of polite reasoning. And when the Count heard what he wished and his goodness, his heart trembled within him in a swoon. Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. 248 As soon as he could speak he said to the squire; — My friend, dare you tell me truly and announce that fair Beatris wants me to have her for my wife, and that she would wait for me in her father1s garden? — — Sire, I well dare to tell it to you and to swear it. — Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. The Count has great joy from this that he will be taken because of love. Fifty knights from his council he took; he had them mount quickly on fine horses; he returned at night when it was dark, so that no one would know if it or be warned. Very tempting are the evil things that one takes fcr loyal true love. They rode so much that night and the next day that at vespers they had come directly beneath the garden. Hugo jumped over the wall, found, in a spot apart, his beloved Beatris; he took her by the hand and said; — God, now I have everything when I have my beloved in my hand. Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. 249 — Hugo, — said Beatris, — what are you going to do with me? Duke Henri wishes to take me; it frightens me. I am pregnant by you; so that I beg and pray of you, if ever you had loyalty and faith in your heart, that you take me away quickly, because I wish nothing better. Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. Gently the Count embraced the fair body, with love they have both caressed each other, so that thus they have greatly assuaged their trouble. They went out of the garden, without asking leave; he puts spurs to the horse so that they were carried away. Very temping are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. Up to the palace of Hugo they did not wish to stop. There rested Beatris of the fair face. The assemblage heard great rejoicing and great delight. They loved each other loyally without deception, so that one did not wish to refuse the other anything he wished. Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. 250 Duke Henri learned it, he was very much dismayed by it. He came to Beatris* father because of it quite angry. Fiercely he said to him, like a man enraged: — You have taken from me my love, evil will come of it. Hugo's head will even be cut off, and you also, by the Lord, will be exiled because of it. — Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. When the lord heard him he replied softly: — Sire, you have my word for it, faithfully I promise you. Hugo stole her from me, last evening he took her from me. — Alas, — the Duke said at this, — how badly I have been treated. I had rather be dead than that he take her away like this. God of love, what shall I do? Step forward, I am going to kill myself. Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. — Sire, — said the mother then, — do not be so broken up. You will never recover Beatris, my daughter. By Our Lord, let Hugo have his love; \ he loved her before you, that you know full well. — — My lady, — the Duke then said, — all this is true, 251 but I am tortured by this love which enflames me. Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. The Duke got up, bereft of joy, and empty. He returned to his land with very little pleasure. He went to bed sick, as is found, He died from having "loved well, from which came great sorrow. And Hugo, who was courtly and learned, had his beloved. Very tempting are the evil things that one takes for loyal true love. XVIII. Fair Ysabiaus, a well educated young girl, loved Gerard and he her in such a way that he was never seized with folly by it, thus he loved her with such good love that she kept her honor far better than he. And Gerard is waiting for joy. When more pure love between them had occurred, by loyalty sealed and confirmed, from this love her parents took the girl, and gave her as a lord against her wishes a lowly vassal. And Gerard is waiting for joy. 252 When Gerard learned, he who was dominated by pure love, that the fair maid had been given to a lord, he was so hurt and chagrined at his mistress that to his lady in a place apart he made his plaint and his claim. And Gerard is waiting for joy. — My friend Gerard, do not be envious of that which was never requested by you? now that I have a lord who loves and cherishes me, I should be of such worth that I should not think of folly. And Gerard is waiting for joy. — My friend Gerard, do as I command: go away again, thus you will give proof of the nobility of your character. You would have me killed, if I were caught with you. But make your returning soon; I recommend you to the Creator. And Gerard is waiting for joy. — My lady, the love which you had before, you must have conquered by loyalty; but since I find you harder than flint 253 I have in my heart so much sorrow that I certainly seem to sigh and weep. And Gerard is waiting for joy. — My lady, by God's will, — says Gerard without pretense, — have pity on me by your kindness, your love is torturing and burning me, and because of you I am in such anguish that no one can be in greater. — And Gerard is waiting for joy. When Gerard, who is ruled by pure love, sees that his pain was not being diminished at all, then he took up the Cross from sorrow and beset with anger, and then he called for his equipment so that he could move out at the break of day. And Gerard is waiting for joy. As soon as Gerard had moved out, as soon as he had taken his way, he sent his squire Denis ahead to speak to his lady thru his nobility of character. The lady was going through the green fields into a garden to gather flowers. And Gerard is waiting for joy. 254 She lady was dressed with elegance, she was very beautiful, dainty, well-rounded and delicate; she had a face as rosy as a cherry. — Lady, — said he, — what a good day wishes you he whom I love and adore. — And Gerard is waiting for joy. — Lady, by Our Lord, — said Gerard without pretense, — I went over the seas for you. — The lady heard it, she would rather have been killed. They embraced each other with sweetness, and both collapsed on the grass. And Gerard is waiting for joy. Her husband saw the foolish act. Truly he thought the lady lay dead beside her lovers he hated and despised himself so much that he lost his force and vigor and died of sorrow in his chagrin. And Gerard is waiting for joy. Prom the swopn they arose in such a manner that they have all the services said for the dead man. The sorrow remains. Gerard in the holy church 255 made of the lady his wife. This our ancestors testify. Now Gerard has joy. XIX. Pair Ydoine is sitting beneath a green olive tree in her father*s garden, she is struggling with herself and blaming herself, with all her heart sighing she complains: — Alas, wicked girl! Beloved, nothing is of any use to me, music, note nor flute; when I can not see you I no longer wish to live. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. Alack alas, — she says, — what a long wait there is! Count Garsile, my love, because of you I am in torment. My friend, your love attacks me so that I shall use up my youth in tears and weeping, I cannot escape alive if I do not see you or feel you near. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. Evil was the war waged by my father because of which your men came into this country; so long have you kept it up richly by your arms 256 that you have brought it to a good end and brought about peace; but before that was the life of many a knight taken Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. Then was the land of my father devastated, all the little people either dead or oppressed if the war was not brought to an end and paid for where you made so many assaults, so proudly attacked, because of which I have sat up many a night for love of you. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. When peace was firm and war taken care of, when your barony was restored you presented yourself to me, where there was never anything evil; but I lost my heart because of you. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. Beloved, it pleases me greatly to recall your beauty. So sweet and free, courtly and of noble bearing, that never did you wish to do any harm to me. You gave me so much love, you cannot displease me, so that my heart cannot withdraw from your love. 257 Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. Alas, what shall I do? I am in such great distress. Beloved, your beauty, your intelligence, your prowess have struck me with a shaft of love which wounds my heart; if you do not discard it there is none who can withdraw it because you have put both the shaft and the arrow there. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. While fair Ydoine is weeping and complaining and regretting the absence of brave Garsile, whom she loves and desires so ardently, the voice of her mother is heard; anxious to go quickly, speedily running across a whole grassy way, she sees her lady-in-waiting in a sorrowful state. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. — My lady, — she said, — summon up your courage, today you have brought great sorrow and great anger. The King and Queen have seen your actions and they are saying between themselves that you are not wise. — The voice of her mother is heard: now there will be trouble. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. 258 She took her by the tresses which she had fair as wool and took her speedily before the King her father, her manner told him that of which he was quite certain. — Then there will be, — said the King, — a beating next, then X shall have her shut up in the high tower. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. Straightway he had the maid take off her garments and remove her belt, he beat her with a broken branch everywhere he could reach her, so that all her white flesh was tinted with vermillion. Then he had her shut up in the tower to remain there. Thus he thought he was chastising her and bringing her around to his way. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. Now was fair Ydoine put into the tower alone. But because of that she did not in any way change her heart, for she was so taken up with love of Garsile, that there was nothing in this world which she loved and prized so much. Weeping she longed for him, for she was so fully aware of it. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. 259 Three years was the maiden shut up in the tower. She longed for her beloved, sorrowing and weeping. — Alas, my sweet one, — said she, — how long I have remained! I have been imprisoned in this tower because of your love; soon I shall die there for you, I am in even greater anguish. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. Then she cried out again and wept in a loud voice: — My friend, I have suffered thru many a hard week for you. I am shut up here in great anguish because of your love. I cannot stand on my feet, I am so much affected by it and so weak. — With these words she sits in a faint, unable to speak and without breath. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. The King heard the cry and the disturbance; he marvelled greatly when she quieted down. Into the tower he came running more quickly than a deer goes. He saw his daughter in a swoon, ydoine the noble. He took her into his arms, he did not wish her to go away. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. 260 The King had great sorrow in his heart, he did not know what to say. The Queen ran up, confounded with sorrow and anger. The fair maid recovered from her swoon, she sighed. -- My daughter, — the King then said, — this love is making you worse. — When she could speak she replied: -- True, sire, Alas I shall die soon, I cannot combat it. — Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. — My daughter, how this love has made you change color and grow pale! You were not pretending that you loved Garsile. Now you shall not see another month pass before your love is attained. -- --Sire, by the mercy of the Lord, in this there is no need of force. If X do not have him for my lord I shall be dead from sorrow. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. — My daughter, if you wish to interest yourself in marriage, I would give you the son of a king, rich and of high lineage. — Sire, I shall never have anyone in all my time if I do not have Garsile, the handsome, the brave, the wise: because except for you I do not know anyone so valiant of any descent. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. 261 When the King heard his daughter who did not wish to hear about anything else, He had a tournament announced, for which he did not wish to wait; it would be in front of the tower, they would be able to dis play themselves well there: and he who would have the prize, if it be fitting for him to take it, Ydoine the courtly, then he has but to accept. Ay Lord, One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. The news is soon known thruout the land. It pleases them to hear it more than the harp or the viol. All of them say that they will go to win the maiden, for her love they will reduce many a lance to splinters. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. Then come knights from many a foreign land; because of the love of the maiden there is no one who holds back. Count Garsile came there with a very rich company. In front of the tower the fair maid had many a rich banner and the tourney began, there was no one who was pretending. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. 262 Each one pressed forward to do his best for fair Ydoine, who placed herself at the window, there was none so noble in Prance. She gave her beloved a sleeve as a token of love, and the Count received it, and threw himself into the tourney. Never did a better knight hold a shield or a lance. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. Splendid was the tournament under the ancient tower. Each one wishes that Ydoine become his thru his prowess. And the fair maid cried out: ■*- Count Garsile, help! — The Count, who did not fear or flee from any knight, that day caused many a horse and many a mare to become riderless. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. Garsile, who had prowess and strength, performed well, for the love of the maiden he exerted himself and showed his strength. He pierced and broke those shields as if they were made of bark. Not a knight did he meet but that he threw him to the ground. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. 263 He conquered the whole tourney, he won the maid, and the King gave her away, so that he took her as his wife. He took her off to his country, put her in a place of great honor. Very sweetly they loved each other loyally without pretense. Now the fair Ydoine has as much as her heart desires. Ay Lord! One who feels sorrow and pain from love is surely to have joy next. XX. Fair Emmelot is nearby, underneath the arbor, she is weeping for Guy on the grass which is turning green, because of a wicked husband who beats and mistreats her; but because of fear of punishment she cannot change her heart. And Guy loves Emmelot in faith. Loudly complained the fair one and she was greatly troubled and said weeping: — My friend, my husband beats me too much because of your love and he torments me. Never before was a king's daughter so badly treated. And Guy loves Emmelot in faith. 264 --Alas, where shall I flee, by what path or what route? I have no desire, my love, other than to see you? because if one single day I could have you for my pleasure so much would I love the gift that I should nevermore be troubled. And Guy moves Emmelot in faith. Her husband heard her, he was greatly angered by the beauty who contradicted him so. He went to her, thru her silken robes he beat her so that for a little more he would have killed her there beside the bushes. And Guy loves Emmelot in faith. He beat her flesh so much that he wounded her, so that in a hundred places he tore her and broke her. After the beating her lover comes, returning from the tournament, by chance past the alder bush. And Guy loves Emmelot in faith. The Count heard his beloved, he went to her; he saw her pain, he almost went mad. — Fair Emmelot, — he said, — God protect you. 265 Tell me, my fair one, I pray you, has someone beaten you because of me? And Guy loves Emmelot in faith. Pair Emmelot, who sighing burst into tears, said to him: — My love, because of you I can stand the evil things that the Duke was doing to me better when I call your name; and he says that I have no right to love you; then he mistreats me unjustly. And Guy loves Emmelot in faith. When the Count heard that he was greatly angered, he drew his sword of burnished steel, he killed the Duke, he treated him roughly. He took his beloved without more ado before him on his palfrey. And Guy loves Emmelot in faith. To his country the Count took his prize, he made her his wife, gave himself to serving her, and the beauty never grew tired of serving him in good faith. They both love each other with all their hearts. And Guy loves Emmelot in faith. 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