University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 5-2016 Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The uchE arist in Twelfth- Century Literature Lindsey Zachary Panxhi University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the History of Religion Commons, Medieval History Commons, and the Medieval Studies Commons Recommended Citation Panxhi, Lindsey Zachary, "Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The uchE arist in Twelfth-Century Literature" (2016). Theses and Dissertations. 1499. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/1499 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist in Twelfth-Century Literature A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by Lindsey Zachary Panxhi John Brown University Bachelor of Arts in English, 2009 University of Arkansas Master of Arts in English, 2011 May 2016 University of Arkansas This dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. _______________________________ Dr. William Quinn Dissertation Director _______________________________ ___________________________________ Dr. Joshua Byron Smith Dr. Mary Beth Long Committee Member Committee Member Abstract In “Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist in Twelfth-Century Literature,” I analyze the appearance of the Eucharist as a sacred motif in secular lais, romances, and chronicles. The Eucharist became one of the most controversial intellectual topics of the High Middle Ages. While medieval historians and religious scholars have long recognized that the twelfth century was a critical period in which many eucharistic doctrines were debated and affirmed, literary scholars have given very little attention to the concurrent emergence of eucharistic themes in twelfth-century literature. This is unfortunate, since the Eucharist emerges as an intriguing motif, appearing in fantastic encounters with werewolves, demons, fairies, and other supernatural figures. “Hoc Est Corpus Meum” argues that many of these narratives reflect and reinforce the eucharistic teachings circulating in northern France at the time, with which the courtly and clerical audiences would be quite familiar. I show how the authors under consideration, many of whom were clerics, crafted engaging and simultaneously instructive tales that blended sacred and secular material to explore theological truths in fictional contexts. Many of the tales encourage annual reception of the Eucharist, discourage the practice of trial by ordeal, and demonstrate the validity of transubstantiation. Other stories use the Eucharist to affirm the humanity or orthodoxy of certain individuals, or to reveal the demonic or heterodox identity of those who should not be included within Christendom. Whether including or excluding, the Eucharist serves as a discerning tool. © by Lindsey Zachary Panxhi All Rights Reserved Acknowledgements I offer thanks first of all to my beloved husband, whose perpetual encouragement gave me the hope and resolve I needed to complete “Hoc Est Corpus Meum.” I also thank my parents, who have always been a source of wisdom, strength, and support, from elementary school through graduate school. To my siblings and friends both in Fayetteville and afar, you have been an incredible support team; thank you for putting up with conversations on matters of medieval literature about all things medieval, from sacramental rites to supernatural beings. And finally, I want to thank all of my magnificent English professors, and Dr. William Quinn and Dr. Joshua Byron Smith in particular. Their excellent teaching and scholarship has provided me with a model to emulate, and has enabled me to thrive as a writer, teacher, and student of medieval literature and languages. Dedication “Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist in Twelfth-Century Literature” is dedicated to Christi Iesu, in quo sunt omnes thesauri sapientiae et scientiae absconditi. Table of Contents I. Introduction 1 II. Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist in Twelfth-Century Literature Chapter One: Werewolves, Irish Ethnicity, and the Eucharist 23 Chapter Two: Demons and the Eucharist 64 Chapter Three: Fairies and the Eucharist 104 Chapter Four: Perceval and the Graal: Cultivating Curiosity, Inciting Inquiry 142 III. Conclusion 184 IV. Bibliography 196 1 Introduction In “Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist in Twelfth-Century Literature,” I analyze the use of the Eucharist as a sacred motif in secular romances and chronicles. The Eucharist became one of the most controversial intellectual topics of the High Middle Ages. While historians and religious scholars have studied the sacrament in depth, surprisingly, few literary scholars have devoted time to the subject.1 This is unfortunate, since the Eucharist emerges as an intriguing motif, appearing in fantastic encounters with werewolves, demons, fairies, and other supernatural figures. For example, the clergyman and chronicler Gerald of Wales writes of an encounter between a priest and a pair of cursed Irish werewolves, who convince the priest to administer the viaticum to the sickly she-wolf before her death.2 In another tale, the secular cleric Walter Map describes how one noblewoman—a succubus in disguise—avoids receiving the Eucharist for years on end. When finally trapped in a church and confronted with the sacrament, she reveals her demonic identity and flies out a window, shrieking in fear.3 In Yonec, a lai of Marie de France, a fairy knight receives the Eucharist and then commences an affair with a noblewoman, while in the anonymous lai Desiré, a female fairy offers to enter a church and partake of the Host, in order to reassure the knight who is her lover.4 Chrétien de Troyes’s romance Perceval, Le Conte del Graal tells of the Welsh knight Perceval, who fails to inquire about a procession he 1 On the subject of the role of the Eucharist as a literary motif, a few scholars such as Caroline Walker Bynum in Metamorphosis and Identity have considered the subject of the Eucharist, but it has always been a discussion tangential to the central argument of some other subject—in Bynum’s case, the views of metamorphosis and hybridity pre-and post-twelfth-century. Caroline Walker Bynum, Metamorphosis and Identity (New York: Zone Books, 2001), 15-31. A brief survey of the work of religious and historical scholars regarding the sacrament of the Eucharist will be included below. 2 Gerald of Wales, Topographia Hibernica, et Expugnatio Hibernica, ed. James F. Dimock. Rolls Series 21, 8 vols. (Wiesbaden: Kraus Reprint Ltd, 1964), V. 101–07 [hereafter, “Top.”]. 3 Walter Map, De nugis curialium. The Courtiers’ Trifles, ed. and trans. M.R. James, revised by C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 344-49 [hereafter, “De nugis”]. 4 Marie de France, Les Lais de Marie de France, ed. Jean Rychner (Paris: Éditions Champion, 1983), 102-119. [hereafter, “Lais de Marie”]; “Le lay du Desiré,” French Arthurian Literature, Volume IV: Eleven Old French Narrative Lays, ed. and trans. Glyn S. Burgess and Leslie C. Brook (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2007), 41-79. [hereafter, “Desiré”]. 2 observes in the castle of the Fisher King, in which a graal containing a single eucharistic wafer passes by him.5 In “Hoc Est Corpus Meum,” I will dedicate a chapter to each of these narratives, exploring how the mingling of sacred and secular motifs not only entertains, but offers instruction. My dissertation is the first to demonstrate how these chronicles, lais, and romances, usually read as entertaining fiction, also accomplished serious theological work. The authors speak to controversial ecclesiastical and social issues of the twelfth century, using the tales to demonstrate the validity of transubstantiation, to discourage the practice of trial by ordeal, and occasionally to encompass unexpected individuals, such as Irish werewolves or otherworldly fairies, within the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy. These writers portray the Eucharist as a sacrament which surpasses borders and ethnicities. Conversely, the stable identity of the divine Body works to reveal the changeable identities of other medieval bodies, such as succubi masquerading as human women. The Eucharist can include or exclude, but it always serves as a discerning tool. Although the Eucharist is a subject of interest from the first century onwards, I will focus primarily on twelfth-century texts, and I will be working mainly with literature composed in northern France or Britain, and written in Old French or Latin. Preceding the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, the twelfth century sees lively discussion and dispute about the nature of the Eucharist and the doctrine of transubstantiation. The term “transubstantiation” was used as early as the eleventh century, and while the Church officially recognized the equivalence of the Host and the literal body and blood of Christ in 1215, it was not a new belief but rather the affirmation of a doctrine which had been believed, debated, and enacted throughout the twelfth century and 5 Chrétien de Troyes, Le Roman de Perceval, ou Le Conte du Graal: Édition critique d’après tous les manuscrits par Keith Busby, ed. Keith Busby (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1993) [hereafter, “Le Roman de Perceval”]. 3 earlier periods.6 During the