Medieval Oraljty and Morality

BRETON LAYS: MEDIEVAL ORALJTY AND MORALITY bv Nadine T. d'Entremont Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia December, 1996 Copyright by Nadine T. d'Entremont, 1996 Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie SeMces seMces bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant a la National Libmy of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distriiute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Table of Contents Introduction Chapter One: The Breton Lay in French: Marie de France Chapter Two: The Later Breton Lay in French: After Marie Chapter Three: The Breton Lay in English Chapter Four: Chaucer's Franklin's Tale Works Cited Abstract The Breton lay, a type of short narrative poem which often though not always deals with subjects such as extramarital love and/or the supernatural, was written in French by Marie de France during the twelfth century, and was subsequently copied by various authors in both French and English until the fourteenth century. Although less than fifty examples of the form survive, few examinations of the entire genre have been attempted. The genre studies which do exist tend to measure the later Breton lays against the twelve pieces composed by Marie de France, and often conclude that Marie's versions of the form are the only true Breton lays. My thesis is a genre study of the Breton lay which traces the development of the form to show why later lay writers have to move away from the essence of Marie's Lais. In Chapter One, I demonstrate that Marie de France relies on the context of her Lais as a compilation to provide a framework which allows for sympathetic portrayals of certain women who turn to adultery for love. In Chapter Two, I examine other French Breton lay writers who, in choosing to write individual pieces rather than a collection of stories exploring diverse viewpoints. shy away from sympathizing with adulteresses and instead treat them only as weak or shameful individuals. In Chapter Three, I study English Breton lays, which are also written as separate pieces rather than as cornplimenting pieces in a compilation; i show that the English lays move away from the theme of extramarital intrigue in favour of a far safer subject, the happily married couple. Finally, in Chapter Four, I consider Chaucer's Franklin's Tale. My conclusion is that Chaucer, even within the context of the Canterburv Tales collection, avoids the risque approach to adultery such as that found in Marie de France's Lais because his better understanding of literacy makes him doubt the stability of an authorrs textual organization. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the people who helped to get me through this thesis: Dr. Melissa Furrow, for her kindness and her wisdom; my parents, for their support throughout my years at Dalhousie; and, of course, Tim, for his love, his encouragement and his patience (although he wouldn't allow me to work on the thesis during our honeymoon). Introduction Scholars interested in the Breton lay have often founded their research on the collection known as Marie de France's Lais-twelve pieces as found in British Library MS. Harley 978, ff. 118a-160a.' This compilation is ostensibly the first written example of that curious style of short rnedieval poem dating from the late twelfth century and attributed to Breton sources. If we simply accept Marie as the creator and therefore the sole authority on what constitutes a Breton lay, we will undoubtedly find that later adaptations of the form- fall short of expectations, as Mortimer J. Donovan does in The Breton Law A Guide to ~arieties.~Of the anonymous French versions of the genre, Donovan writes, "Although the Breton lay, modeled on the twelve poems of Marie de France, continued to be written through the year 1270, her imitators because of a lack of skill more often than not failedn (65). Quoting Lucien Foulet, he adds that "the closest imitators reveal only a 'pâle reflet' of their model and a fatal preoccupation with favorite motifs, phrases and such externals as the prologue and epilogue of the Breton lay" (66). Donovan's opinion of the later English adaptations is no better: Almost from the very start adventure in the sense in which W.P. Ker uses the word supersedes love as its Ieading motive . But this adventure is not the action co/lective of the chanson de geste in which warriors fight out of love for God ' Glyn S. Burgess, Marie de France: An Analvtical Biblioara~hv,Research Bibliographies and Checklists 21 (London: Grant and Cutler, 1977) 11. The Breton Lav: A Guide to Varieties (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969). and country . Rather, it is the adventure of twelfth-century romance unaccompanied by the usually inseparable element of love; risks are taken by the hero as an individual, both for their own sake and for the advantage of a good story. In the history of the Breton lay this change of emphasis amounts to a retrogression and tends to reduce the lay to a folktale. (122) Such judgments, echoed by countless others, have led those scholars who have chosen to work primarily with the anonymous lays to defend and explain their position. As Harry F. Williams writes, mhe anonymous Breton narrative lays, suffering from the light cast by [Marie's] talent, are cinderellas of mediaeval literature, often neglected and scorned, and the subject of much controversy. I believe the time has now corne when this emphasis can and should be shifted; these anonymous lays rnay be considered on their own merit as artistic representatives of the genre? To be sure, we can agree with Donovan when he says that Marie's work on the Breton lay "can be considered the first and set the standard" (Donovan 7). According to Marie's claims in her general Prologue and in the prologues to individual lays, she is repeating tales she has heard told by Bretons. Since no earlier examples exist to corroborate this detail, we can do no better than to assume that Marie's sources are oral and that the poems she developed set off an interest in the genre. But to determine that a work motivated others to write does not necessarily entail direct influence. Even if Marie originated the primary form of Breton lay which gave rise to subsequent varieties, her accomplishment did more than merely provoke slavishly trendy imitations: it established a tradition which endured through - "The Anonymous Breton Lays," Research Studie~32 (1964): 76. 3 several generations. In the centuries after Marie wrote her Lais, this tradition was undoubtedly transformed according to the diverse social and textual circumstances of various eras. During the fourteenth century, for example, either a Benedictine or a Dominican order of Chester had in its possession a thirteenth-century manuscript of the Shrewsbury School containing the titles of si*-seven lays, including seven Breton lays by Marie de rance.^ Although the manuscript does not actually include any of the lays it catalogues, Georgine Brereton suggests that it is possible that the list was copied from the table of contents of another large manuscript of lays (40). (Unfortunately, if such a manuscript ever existed, it is now lost, and we have no access to the many lays which we know only by title from the list. What we can learn from this inventory, however, is that a number of Breton lays probably did exist beyond those which survive today, and that they were still in vogue well after Marie wrote hers.) Marie's Old French imitators wrote in the thirteenth century: over ten (the exact nurnber is debatable) anonymous Breton lays in French survive, and at least two have titles which appear on the Shrewsbury list--Doun (no. 12) and Tidore/ (no. 27).' Moreover, as Donovan explains, the Breton lay did not develop in English " Georgine E. Brereton, "A Thirteenth-Century List of French Lays and Other Narrative Poems," Modern Languaae Review 45 (1950): 40. ' AS for Marie's titles, we must .consider some uncertainties: Does "Beu desire" (no. 10) refer to the anonymous French lay Desire? Might "Eygnorn (no. 13) be the lay which we now know as Lai d'lgnaur67 And could "Vygamer" be, instead of Marie's Guigernar, the anonymous lay Guingamor (Brereton 4-47 4 until the thirteenth century, and continued to be in vogue throughout the fourteenth century, a period which coincides with the evolution of the long romance (122). Any attempt at defining the Breton lay, then, should take these factors into consideration. No given manifestation of the forrn should be designated as a superior one; each sample should rather be seen as one of a number of equally valid yet differing representations of the same product. For diverse medieval audiences, diverse themes and motifs were evoked by the term "Breton lay." Similarly, different storytellers who set out to recount adventures from Britanny held different notions concerning the genre.

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