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Authority, Marriage, and Politics in Late-Medieval France

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Authority, Marriage, and Politics in Late-Medieval France The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts PERSUADING THE POLITY: AUTHORITY, MARRIAGE, AND POLITICS IN LATE-MEDIEVAL FRANCE A Dissertation in French and Women’s Studies by Elizabeth L. Kinne © 2013 Elizabeth L. Kinne Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2013 The dissertation of Elizabeth L. Kinne was reviewed and approved* by the following: Norris J. Lacy Edwin Erle Sparks Professor (Emeritus) of French and Medieval Studies Dissertation Advisor Co-Chair of Committee Bénédicte Monicat Professor of French and Women’s Studies Head of the Department of French and Francophone Studies Co-Chair of Committee Christine Clark-Evans Associate Professor of French, Women’s Studies, and African and African-American Studies Jean-Claude Vuillemin Professor of French Robert R. Edwards Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English and Comparative Literature * Signatures are on file in the Graduate School Kinne ii Abstract Persuading the polity: Authority, marriage, and politics in late-medieval France In the later Middle Ages, texts on marriage proliferated, either works of conduct meant to make women good wives or more general reflections addressed to a wide spectrum of medieval society. These multiple and contradictory discourses regarding matrimony performed a variety of functions beyond attempting to regulate a household or persuade the audience of the worthiness, or lack thereof, of the institution. They are displays of power that seek to impose an idealized vision of society and one’s authority over others. An exploration of this subtext brings to light the difficulties of exerting individual agency in the face of myriad constraints, whether social, economic, or political. The authorial postures assumed, the identities created, the sources adapted, and the knowledge exposed created a late medieval form of self-fashioning. Another didactic genre, mirrors for princes or Furstenspiegel, fulfilled a manifest political role in providing counsel to male rulers; texts regarding marriage, addressed ostensibly to women but containing many messages intended for men, complement this agenda of influence. Marriage texts express the fears, ambitions, and negotiations that result from governing the polity in their representation of the difficulties of holding sway over a representative microcosm, the household. This study examines the authorial anxieties and authoritative posturing of three texts representative of late medieval discourses about marriage, Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry pour l’enseignement ses filles, Le Ménagier de Paris, and Eustache Deschamps’s Le Miroir de mariage. Chapter One “The Courtly Conundrum: Marriage and Legitimacy in Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry pour l’enseignement de ses filles ” discusses the late medieval shift toward a regulatory discourse of institutionalized marriage and away from the perilous courtly love trope. Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry pour l’enseignement de ses filles, a French conduct book written by the Chevalier Kinne iii de la Tour Landry, a member of the provincial petite noblesse, in 1371. His work displays a patriarchal, authorial desire to participate in the conversation regarding matrimony. The narrator, known as “the Chevalier” in this study, betrays a paternalist angst brought about by the threat of disobedience should he fail to impose his vision. The narrator’s adaptation of his source text, Le Miroir des Bonnes Femmes, espouses the idea of a lineage founded in virtue and reveals the threat of illegitimacy that could arise if his fatherly advice is not heeded. Chapter Two, “Playing the Game in Le Ménagier de Paris,” examines the importance of gaming and social exchange in the 1394 Parisian bourgeois conduct book of an anonymous author. Through its anecdotes, exempla, religious instruction, and preoccupation with the daily affairs of the household, this polyvalent work celebrates a set of class values particular to the late medieval bourgeoisie. As the narrator encourages his wife to uphold their collective estate, he negotiates a place for himself and his household through the practices of leisure and labor. Depicting men who participate in games where a wife’s obedience is at stake demonstrates how the discursive formation of a woman’s virtue circulated as a form of symbolic currency in late medieval society. His unacknowledged adaptation of Le Jeu des echecs moralisé, a mirror for princes composed in Latin by Jacobus de Cessolis and translated into French by Jean Ferron in 1347, reveals the political aspirations and personal investment in self- improvement behind his allusions to gaming. Chapter Three, “Franc Vouloir and the ties that bind in Eustache Deschamps’s Miroir de mariage,” reflects upon the masculine solidarity established between Franc Vouloir [Free Will], model ruler, and his counselor, Repertoire de Science [Repository of Knowledge], in the allegorical mirror intended to dissuade men from wedding. Neither of the protagonists lives up to his name; Free Will strains to exert his agency in decision-making and Repository’s counsel remains ineffective. This lengthy, unfinished treatise and its illustrations of faulty medieval institutions reflect Deschamps’s Kinne iv own frustrations and motivations as a politically engaged poet, a member of the noblesse de robe, and administrator in the royal court during the reign of Charles VI. The text showcases Aristotelian notions about politics, adapting ideas from the Nichomachean Ethics and the Politics that had been translated for Charles V, at the same time as it features their problematic application. It is above all an illustration of the difficulties of imposing and maintaining an ideal in an imperfect, material world, a self-reflexive act regarding the problematic confrontation of the wills that results from the production and reception of any mirroring or conduct text. Chapter Four complements and completes the study of Deschamps’s Miroir de mariage. “Eustache Deschamps’s Miroir de mariage: The Wife and the Will” posits that the illustration of the problematic application of counsel is in fact a parody of the mirroring tradition. The sober tones of Franc Vouloir and Repertoire de Science’s exchange are counterbalanced by the fabliaux-like yet still misogynistic comedy of the descriptions of the imaginary household. The proliferation of voices and the multiple audiences established in the work complicate the questions of authorial voice and purported certainties about what society should be. In this dispute over sovereignty and mastery, there can be no true winner and the loser is the French nation as a whole. This last chapter demonstrates how the surprising transition from the discussion of an unruly wife to a poorly ruled nation lends political significance to the exchange of tales about women between men in the later Middle Ages. Kinne v Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter One …………………………………………………………………………………….24 The Courtly Conundrum: Marriage and Legitimacy in Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry pour l’enseignement de ses filles Chapter Two …………………………………………………………………………………….74 Playing the Game in Le Ménagier de Paris Chapter Three…………………………………………………………………………………...125 Franc Vouloir and the ties that bind in Eustache Deschamps’s Miroir de mariage Chapter Four……………………………………………………………………………………175 Eustache Deschamps’s Miroir de mariage: The Wife and the Will Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………225 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………..........241 Kinne vi Acknowledgements This project could not have come to fruition without the help and support of many and I would like to express my sincere gratitude for their mentoring and support during this project. First and foremost, I would like to thank Prof. Norris J. Lacy for inspiring and guiding this intellectual and personal journey. As both friend and mentor, he helped me to create a solid framework upon which to build and left me the space and freedom to develop, explore, and follow my own intuitions. Prof. Robert R. Edwards warmly welcomed me in his courses in the English Department at Penn State and his contributions to my scholarship and understanding of medieval English studies deserve more recognition than I could possibly give. I would also like to thank the co-chair of my committee, Prof. Bénédicte Monicat, for her shaping my feminist scholarship and for asking just the right questions. I am very grateful to Prof. Christine Clark-Evans for her insights into early modern political culture, feminist scholarship, and for having one day shared the words that would become the mantra for completing this project: “Work on it when you can, even if it’s just for a few minutes.” I would also like to thank Prof. Jean-Claude Vuillemin for his support during my graduate coursework and his open office door; I cherish the many conversations we had during my time at Penn State. Many thanks to all the faculty members with whom I had the privilege of working in the Department of French and Francophone Studies and the Department of Women’s Studies, one becomes an academic by learning from exemplary scholars. The lessons you gave are too numerous to count. The American University of Paris has provided me with immeasurable support and an intellectual home at the end of my graduate work. I am grateful to the Department of Comparative Literature and English for welcoming me into their community. Prof. Roy Rosenstein has been and
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