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3.Medieval Tradition of Thebes History and Narrative in the Roman De RT993X_FM 3/30/04 9:09 AM Page i S TUDIES IN M EDIEVAL H ISTORY AND C ULTURE Edited by Francis G. Gentry Professor of German Pennsylvania State University AROUTLEDGE SERIES RT993X_FM 3/30/04 9:09 AM Page ii STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL HISTORY AND CULTURE FRANCIS G. GENTRY, General Editor CHOOSING NOT TO MARRY THE CONTESTED THEOLOGICAL Women and Autonomy in the AUTHORITY OF THOMAS AQUINAS Katherine Group The Controversies between Hervaeus Julie Hassel Natalis and Durandus of St. Pourçain Elizabeth Lowe FEMININE FIGURAE Representations of Gender in BODY AND SACRED PLACE IN Religious Texts by Medieval German MEDIEVAL EUROPE, 1100–1389 Women Writers Dawn Marie Hayes Rebecca L. R. Garber WOMEN OF THE HUMILIATI A Lay Religious Order in BODIES OF PAIN Medieval Civic Life Suffering in the Works of Hartmann Sally Mayall Brasher von Aue Scott E. Pincikowski CONSUMING PASSIONS The Uses of Cannibalism in Late THE LITERAL SENSE AND THE GOSPEL OF Medieval and Early Modern Europe JOHN IN LATE MEDIEVAL COMMENTARY Merrall Llewelyn Price AND LITERATURE Mark Hazard LITERARY HYBRIDS Crossdressing, Shapeshifting, THE REPRODUCTIVE UNCONSCIOUS IN and Indeterminacy in Medieval LATE MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN and Modern French Narrative ENGLAND Erika E. Hess Jennifer Wynne Hellwarth PESTILENCE IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MYSTICAL LANGUAGE OF SENSE IN MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE THE LATER MIDDLE AGES Bryon Lee Grigsby Gordon Rudy RACE AND ETHNICITY IN FAIR AND VARIED FORMS ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE Visual Textuality in Medieval Stephen J. Harris Illustrated Manuscripts Mary C. Olson ASPECTS OF LOVE IN JOHN GOWER’S CONFESSIO AMANTIS QUEENS IN THE CULT OF THE FRENCH Ellen Shaw Bakalian RENAISSANCE MONARCHY Public Law, Royal Ceremonial, and THE KING’S TWO MAPS Political Discourse in the History of Cartography and Culture in Regency Government, 1484–1610 Thirteenth-Century England Elizabeth A. McCartney Daniel Birkholz RT993X_FM 3/30/04 9:09 AM Page iii THE MEDIEVAL TRADITION OF THEBES History and Narrative in the OF Roman de Thèbes, Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Lydgate Dominique Battles Routledge New York & London RT993X_book.fm Page iv Tuesday, March 16, 2004 10:32 AM Published in 2004 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. Copyright © 2004 by Routledge All rights reserved. No part of this book may be printed or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. 10987654321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Battles, Dominique, 1964– The medieval tradition of Thebes : history and narrative in the OF Roman de Thèbes, Boccacio, Chaucer, and Lydgate / by Dominique Battles. p. cm. — (Studies in medieval history and culture ; v. 26) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-96993-X (alk. paper) 1. Literature, Medieval—History and criticism. 2. Seven against Thebes (Greek mytholo- gy) in literature. 3. Thebes (Greece)—In literature. I. Title. II. Series. PN687 .S38B38 2004 809'.9332384—dc22 2003022423 RT993X_book.fm Page v Tuesday, March 16, 2004 10:32 AM For Paul and Perry RT993X_book.fm Page vi Tuesday, March 16, 2004 10:32 AM RT993X_book.fm Page vii Tuesday, March 16, 2004 10:32 AM Contents LIST OF CREDITS ix SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD xi PREFACE xiii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xix INTRODUCTION Statius in the Middle Ages 1 Statius as Ancient Authority 2 Statius and Medieval Vernacular Poetics 4 Statius as Moral Authority 6 Statius as Literary Role Model 12 CHAPTER ONE The OF Roman de Thèbes: The Ancients vs. the Moderns 19 Medieval Present and Classical Past 21 The Thèbes and the Crusades 24 Theban Infidels and Greek Crusaders 26 Closing Ranks at Montflor 30 Famine and Foraging as a Crusade Theme 32 Daire le Roux and the Pious Traitor 34 The Gods and False Belief 37 Thebes and Troy 45 The “Greeks” vs. the Thebans 49 The Trojan Landscape of the Thèbes 51 Trojan Battle Tactic on the Theban Plain 52 The Thèbes and Norman Identity 55 CHAPTER TWO Boccaccio’s Teseida and the Destruction of Troy 61 Scythia as a Preview for Troy 65 vii RT993X_book.fm Page viii Tuesday, March 16, 2004 10:32 AM viii Contents The Catalog of Trojan Warriors 69 Helen as Absent Presence 71 The Ruins of Thebes and Troy 73 Boccaccio’s Use of the Epic Type-Scenes 76 CHAPTER THREE Restoring Thebes: Chaucer’s Theban Poems 85 Chaucer and the Teseida 87 Boccaccio’s Redemption of the Theban Character 91 The Anelida and the Return to Thebes 93 The Knight’s Tale, the Teseida, and the Theban Character 97 Restoring the City of Thebes 109 Conclusion 112 CHAPTER FOUR Faulty Connections: The Theban Context of the Troilus 115 Criseyde and the Conditions of Reading History 119 Criseyde’s Lineage: Missing Theban Links 123 Theban-Trojan Character Comparisons: Misreading Theban History 127 Cassandre: History in the Making 133 Conclusion 141 CHAPTER FIVE John Lydgate’s Siege of Thebes: Breaking the Theban Curse 145 The Siege and the Mirror for Princes Genre 145 The Siege and the Prose Redactions of the Roman de Thèbes 149 Lydgate’s Revision of Theban Genealogy 152 Redeeming Edippus 158 Reassessing Theban Sin 162 Reassessing “Greek” Virtue 166 Bad Blood vs. Original Sin 167 Lydgate’s Siege and Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale 169 Conclusion 173 CONCLUSION 175 NOTES 181 BIBLIOGRAPHY 219 INDEX 231 RT993X_book.fm Page ix Tuesday, March 16, 2004 10:32 AM List of Credits A portion of Chapter 1 originally appeared as “Trojan Elements in the OF Roman de Thèbes,” Neophilologus 85/2 (2001): 163-176, and is reprinted here with the kind per- mission of Kluwer Academic Publishers. A version of Chapter 2 appeared in Medievalia et Humanistica, New Series, 28 (2001): 73-99, and is reprinted here with some modification with the kind permission of Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Excerpts from Matthew of Vendôme: The Art of Versification (tr. Aubrey E. Galyon) © 1980 by Iowa State University Press. Reprinted by permission. Excerpts from Lucan: Pharsalia (tr. Jane Wilson Joyce) © 1983 by Cornell University. Reprinted by permission. Excerpts from Historia Destructionis Troiae by Guildo delle Colonne (tr. M. E. Meek) and from The Trojan War: The Chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Cares the Phrygian (tr. R. M. Frazer) reprinted by permission of Indiana University Press. Excerpts from the Thebaid by Statius (tr. A. D. Melville) reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. Excerpts from Concerning the City of God: Against the Pagans by Augustine (tr. Henry Bettenson) © 1972 by Henry Bettenson. Reprinted by permission of the Penguin Group. ix RT993X_book.fm Page x Tuesday, March 16, 2004 10:32 AM RT993X_book.fm Page xi Tuesday, March 16, 2004 10:32 AM Series Editor’s Foreword Far from providing just a musty whiff of yesteryear, research in Medieval Studies en- ters the new century as fresh and vigorous as never before. Scholars representing all disciplines and generations are consistently producing works of research of the high- est caliber, utilizing new approaches and methodologies. Volumes in the Medieval History and Culture series will include studies on individual works and authors of Latin and vernacular literatures, historical personalities and events, theological and philosophical issues, and new critical approaches to medieval literature and culture. Momentous changes have occurred in Medieval Studies in the past thirty years in teaching as well as in scholarship. Thus the goal of the Medieval History and Cul- ture series is to enhance research in the field by providing an outlet for monographs by scholars in the early stages of their careers on all topics related to the broad scope of Medieval Studies, while at the same time pointing to and highlighting new direc- tions that will shape and define scholarly discourse in the future. Francis G. Gentry xi RT993X_book.fm Page xii Tuesday, March 16, 2004 10:32 AM RT993X_book.fm Page xiii Tuesday, March 16, 2004 10:32 AM Preface This study surveys the various metamorphoses of the ancient legend of Thebes in the Middle Ages. For the western middle ages, the Theban tradition begins with Statius’ Thebaid of 96 AD, the first Latin epic devoted to the history of Thebes, and the most substantial classical source of the legend for medieval readers.1 In the mid-twelfth cen- tury, the first vernacular (and indeed the first medieval) version of the Theban legend appears in western France, the OF Roman de Thèbes (c. 1155-60), the work of an anonymous author associated with the Angevin court. Working within the broad out- lines of the story of the Theban war found in Statius, the OF poet grafts material de- rived from contemporary chronicle accounts of the First Crusade as well as French heroic epic onto his classical source, thus lending the story of the Theban war the fla- vor of a crusade narrative. Roughly two hundred years later, Giovanni Boccaccio com- posed a fictional sequel to the story of the Theban war, the Teseida (1339-41), avowedly the first epic in the Italian language. Set in the period immediately following the Theban war and preceding the Trojan war, Boccaccio designs the Teseida as what I will refer to as a “transitional epic,” a work that creates a chronological and typolog- ical link between the Theban and Trojan wars. While Boccaccio was familiar with the OF Thèbes, he relies most heavily upon Statius for his Theban material and on a vari- ety of classical and medieval sources for the Trojan matter. Some forty years later, the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, having returned from a business trip in Italy with a copy of Boccaccio’s Teseida, made two poetic ventures into Theban history, the Anelida and Arcite and the Knight’s Tale (both of the 1380s), both of which draw to varying degrees upon the Teseida.
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