a gallimaufry

The Romance of Tristan, by Béroul, translated by Alan S. Fedrick

(Image used on the current Penguin Classics edition of The Romance of Tristan; found here)

In the introduction to his translation of Béroul’s Romance of Tristan, Alan S. Fedrick warns us:

[…]Beroul’s poem contains much that will startle and baffle a present-day reader who judges it by the modern aesthetic criteria of fictional narratives. There is no doubt that Beroul’s poem is sadly defective by modern standards; for it is far from easy to imagine that a piece of narrative fiction can exist as a serious work of art while dispensing with elements as fundamental as a coherent plot, an ordered flow of events with a clearly discernible causal nexus, and convincing characterisation.

If that is a little offputting, postmodernism has interposed itself between the contemporary reader and Fedrick, whose words were published in 1970. I don’t think that we now apply those aesthetic criteria to all fiction, and in fact this passage seems more dated than Béroul’s poem, written down in c. 1170–90. It is true that the poem is studded with contradictions – for instance, several enemies are killed off more than once, gleefully – so that it can occasionally feel as if you’re reading several palimpsests laid one over the other rather than a single poem. These may be accounted for by the oral origins of the poem, the inattention of the scribe who copied it down into the only surviving manuscript of it or its author being not one but at least two poets; they may also be deliberate aesthetic choices. In any case, the poem is held together by its central concern, the love affair of Tristan and Yseut.

‘Sir, I love Yseut so much. Because of her I cannot sleep nor even doze. My decision is soon taken: I would rather be a beggar with her and live on herbs and acorns than possess the kingdom of the rich King Otran. I beg you not to ask me to leave her, for I cannot do so.’

Still, while this version of Tristan and Yseut may be the earliest written one still in existence, any reader expecting a wonderful romance of noble, star-crossed lovers will be surprised. The narrator of the poem is cheerily partisan, vituperating the lovers’ enemies (‘Whoever would think of such a low trick?’; ‘May God curse them!’) and exclaiming excitedly at moments of high tension (‘God, what folly! He was too rash’). What is odd is that Tristan and Yseut do not seem to justify such support. They suffer no qualms of conscience over their illicit relationship and deceive with both outright lies and, more usually, with ambiguous oaths. Tristan, who even before meeting Yseut has amassed a lot of experience in disguise and deception, repeatedly avows that he will prove his innocence in trial by combat, well aware that he is such a great warrior that nobody will dare challenge him. This is not the spirit of trial by combat, during which God is supposed to support the virtuous, not the strong. Tristan’s reasoning seems to be he is strong so therefore must be virtuous and supported by God, and he’s certainly right that nobody will risk fighting him. He is really little more than a bully, and not averse to murdering unarmed opponents either. And Yseut? Having persuaded her maid, Brangain, to take her place on her wedding night, Yseut tries to have Brangain murdered to safeguard her secret. She also swears on the holiest relics in Cornwall that ‘no man ever came between my thighs except the leper who carried me on his back across the ford and my husband, King Mark’.  The leper is Tristan in disguise, so while Yseut’s vow has one meaning for us, the readers, it intentionally deceives the other characters. In fact, there is no moral heart to the story: the only religious character, Friar Ogrin, advises the lovers to lie to the king in order to be pardoned. King Mark himself is not at all sympathetic, quick to violence and easily persuaded by whichever of his barons has his ear at any one moment. We may not be able to approve of Tristan and Yseut’s behaviour, but we can’t feel in the least sorry for the cuckolded husband. Powerful as Mark is, especially compared to a foreign knight and a woman, he is easily outwitted by their resourcefulness and courage.

(Illustration used for the cover of Joseph Bédier, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult, translated by Hilaire Belloc and completed by Paul Rosenfeld, New York: Random House; found here)

So what is going on here? Well, it seems to me that Béroul has chosen this legend, which would already have been in circulation orally for many years, to undermine mediaeval ideas about courtly love. Although their love for each other is strong and they willingly suffer for one another, and although their ingenuity is admirable, Tristan and Yseut are portrayed by Béroul as selfish and deceitful adulterers. They play with words and distort the truth (even in the quote above, in which Tristan claims he cannot sleep for love of Yseut, he is fibbing for effect). Courtly love is, like the lovers’ language, just a disguise for a rather less glamorous truth, a pretty dress to cover selfishness. Is Béroul also criticising an equivocal Church and a violent feudal society? That I don’t feel qualified to answer. However, I do urge you to settle down with this ambiguous, lively and often funny little book one evening and draw your own conclusions.

naughty mediaeval cats

(Cat’s paw prints on fifteenth-century manuscript in the State Archives of Dubrovnik, photographed by Emir O. Filipović; found here)

(Worse than paw prints! In about 1420 a scribe in Deventer, the Netherlands, returned one morning to continue work on his manuscript to discover a cat had weed on it! In a rage, the scribe drew a picture of the cat and wrote ‘Hic non defectus est, sed cattus minxit desuper nocte quadam. Confundatur pessimus cattus qui minxit super librum ostum in nocte Daventrie, et consimiliter omnes alii propter illum. Et cavendum valde ne permittantur libri aperti per noctem uni cattie venire possunt’ – Here nothing is missing, but a cat urinated on this during the night. Cursed be the pesky cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer and because of it many others [other cats] too. And take very good care not to leave books open at night where cats can come. Cologne, Historisches Archiv, G.B. quarto, 249, fol. 68r, found here)

What were cats doing in mediaeval libraries anyway? Read this post to find out...  It contains a link to this charming ninth-century Irish poem, translated by Robin Flowers:

The Scholar and his Cat, Pangur Bán

I and Pangur Bán my cat,
’Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
’Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.

’Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

’Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
’Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Bán, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

(Picture of cats and rats from unidentified mediaeval manuscript)

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

(Pisanello, Madonna della quaglia [Madonna of the quails], tempera on wood,  c. 1420; Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona)

Hello again! I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long, both here and on your blogs, I’ve fallen completely out of the loop and it feels strange now I have a moment to reflect upon it. I have missed you! The last weeks – maybe months? – have been a frenzy of teacher-training tasks, lengthy viruses and spurts of preparation for Christmas. Finally, all of that is finished and tomorrow we are setting off to stay with my parents in England for a week. From the news I understand that only the highest peaks of Britain are still above water and of course now rather crowded with the entire population clinging to them, so we are packing a boat, candles, tinned food.

In book news I am now deep in an Iris Murdoch binge, I had forgotten how good she is and how much I like her. This follows the Holly Roth detective novel I bought earlier this year, which I am afraid was pretty awful in terms of characterization, plot and style and yet whiled away a couple of plague-ridden hours most pleasantly, and some Ann Bridge, whose novels I enjoy but I have to take in small doses as she is so fearfully bossy.

Anyway, after the holidays I promise I shall write here much more frequently; I’ll reply to Florence’s questions and crack on with the Grimms’ tales. In the mean time, here is one of my favourite Christmas poems: the anonymous fifteenth-century ‘I syng of a mayden’, which survives in one copy, in the British Library (Sloane 2593). You can hear Benjamin Britten’s enchanting setting of it here.

I syng of a mayden
þat is makeles,
kyng of alle kynges
to here sone che ches.

He came also stylle
þer his moder was
as dew in aprylle,
þat fallyt on þe gras.

He cam also stylle
to his moderes bowr
as dew in aprille,
þat fallyt on þe flour.

He cam also stylle
þer his moder lay
as dew in Aprille,
þat fallyt on þe spray.

Moder & mayden
was neuer non but che –
wel may swych a lady
Godes moder be.

(þ is pronounced ‘th’; ‘che ches’ means ‘she chose’)

Merry Christmas, dear readers and fellow bloggers! Thank you for all your comments and all the pleasure your own web-logs have given me this year. May you all enjoy the holidays and let us all look forward to a splendid 2013!

Untitled lyric ('O westron wynd')

It’s a dank dark morning here in Belgium and I am huddled cosily under a blanket in my dank dark study and this poem seeped into my head.

O westron wynde when wyll thow blow
The smalle rayne downe can rayne –
Cryst, yf my love wer in my armys
And I in my bed agayne!

(Anon., 1520; from Paul Keegan, ed., The New Penguin Book of English Verse (London: Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 2000), p. 74)

There’s a lot of smalle rayne falling here, but it’s nice to be inside and warm. Have a lovely weekend, dear friends!

(Jean Mansel, illuminated page in Vie de Nostre Seigneur Jésus Christ (11.1 x 15.8 cm, fol. 174), fifteenth century;  Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; found here with the following explanation of conception and ensoulment:

This illumination from a fifteenth-century French manuscript shows a couple in bed. The Holy Trinity—father, son and Holy Ghost—watch from the upper left corner and send them a childlike form. This recalls the iconography of the Annunciation. The scroll quotes Genesis from the Latin Bible: ‘Let us create man in our image and likeness’ (Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudem nostram). The slippers by the bed refer to God’s commandment to Moses to remove his sandals before the holy ground of the burning bush, and so point to the holiness of the sacrament of marriage. The woman’s extended right arm probably signifies Eve’s offering the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, reminding us that we all inherit Original Sin at conception. The burning candle on the mantelpiece indicates the beginning of a new life. Ensoulment and conception are tightly linked here, and so probably took place in the same moment, contrary to Aristotelian and vernacular ideas.)

Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination, exhibition at the British Library

 

(King David in the Psalms, The Westminster Psalter, London, c. 1200 , British Library, Royal 2 A. xxii, f. 14v © British Library Board)

An exhibition of the British Library’s collection of manuscripts owned by medieval kings and queens of England is opening on 11 November; I am desperate to go and see it but probably won’t be able to do so. It looks wonderful. The collection is of luxury books which belonged to monarchs from the ninth to sixteenth centuries, truly works of art. Because they are books, and thus usually closed, the paint colours often remain almost as vivid as the day they were painted. The press release promises that the books give insight into royal identity, prescribed regal behaviour and moral codes, and politics.

Below is an extraordinary picture from Henry VIII’s psalter (c. 1540) with Henry posing as (a very middle-aged) David. The colours almost hurt your eyes! Henry chose to identify himself with the supposed writer of the Psalms, a great warrior, musician and poet and also the direct ancestor of Jesus;  nothing if not modest. David had an adulterous affair with Bathsheba, and perhaps Henry allows an allusion to his affair and marriage with Anne Boleyn. Bathsheba’s first son by David was struck down with a mortal illness by the Lord; Anne’s son also died (stillborn). Anne had been executed in 1536 and Henry may be affirming that his relationship with her was sinful, the result of (her) witchcraft.

I wish I could decipher the note in the margin...

(Henry VIII as David, Henry VIII’s Psalter, London c. 1540, Royal 2 A xvi © British Library Board)

And here is Henry V, as a yong man and Prince of Wales, from a copy of the Regement of Princes which was made for him. This was an English book in verse which gave exemplars (or ‘mirrors’) of good and bad regal behaviour for a prince to reflect upon. The image shows Henry receiving a copy of that very book from the kneeling author. Incorporating his portrait in the Regement makes him an exemplar as well as a reader, and binds him personally more closely to the lessons of the text.

(Henry V as a young prince, Thomas Hoccleve, Regement of Princes, England, c. 1430–38, British Library, Royal 17 D. vi, ff. 39v–40 © British Library Board)

And this is fabulous in both senses of the word! It’s a map of the pilgrimage route to Jerusalem, drawn by Matthew Paris in around 1250 and forming the preface to a copy of his Historia Anglorum. The itinerary begins in London and then travels by way of France and Apulia, with major stops and landmarks drawn on it.  The camel is enchanting.

(Itinerary to Jerusalem, Matthew Paris, Map to Jerusalem, St Albans, c. 1250, Royal 14 C vii, ff. 2–5 © British Library Board)

Even if I cannot actually get to the exhibition, I will be selling my first-born and only child in order to purchase a copy of the catalogue.

(All captions are those written by the British Library; see here for further information.)

Tutivillus, the literate demon

Tutivillus or Titivillus is a demon associated with writing and literacy. In the Middle Ages he was painted on church walls and carved on misericords, bench ends and corbels; he trod the boards as a character in the Towneley Judicium and Mankind; he introduced errors into scribes’ work copying texts and his exploits were described in sermons, conduct books and poems. You can see him lurking beside a monk’s desk in the picture I used for my profile photograph, an expression of concentration on his face, a stealthy claw laid by the ink well (it’s a fourteenth-century image I took from here; the original source is unfortunately not given). Later he haunted printing presses, causing typesetters to make mistakes.

I am very fond of Tutivillus and wrote my MA dissertation about his representations in mediaeval English church art and sermon exempla. Exempla were illustrative stories drawn from folklore, the Bible, everyday life, the writer’s own imagination; they can be found in sermon collections referred to by priests, conduct books and didactic treatises. There are two about Tutivillus. The most common relates how a priest, deacon or saint sees Tutivillus perched high up in a church noting down the idle gossip of parishioners who are chattering rather than paying attention to the Mass; the people talk so much that he must stretch out his parchment with his teeth in order to fit all the words on it; in many versions the parchment breaks, Tutivillus bangs his head on the wall or pillar of the church and the priest laughs and warns the congregation, who usually repent and oblige the demon to erase what he has written.  In the other exemplum Tutivillus is again seen in a church by a man of God, but this time the devil is creeping through the choir with a bulging sack over his shoulder. He explains that he is gathering up all the ‘syalablys & woordys, ouerskipped and synkopyed, & verse & psalymys þe whiche þese clerkys han stolyn in þe qweere, & haue fayled in here seruyse’ (from the Alphabetum Narrationum: An Alphabet of Tales) and stuffing them into this sack. In some versions, after they die the offending monks are sent to Hell where they must carry sacks full of the words they mispronounced in saying Mass and thus stole from God.

I burbled on at length on various aspects of all this in my dissertation, but what I found most fascinating was that both these stories dramatise a spoken sound becoming a visible written mark on a page, a process which must have seemed astonishing to people encountering it for the first time in a culture moving from the oral to the literate. I particularly liked the idea of mumbled words attaining a three-dimensional form and weight and lying on the church floor like lumps of half-chewed bread for Tutivillus to slip into his bag. To me it is all of a piece with the mediaeval love of allegory, of taking abstract qualities and clothing them, with transubstantiation, with approved and transgressive language, with St Augustine’s theory that a person’s mind creates an image of the word when he or she hears it. But this post is already far too long and tortuous, a bit like Tutivillus's parchment, ha ha.

You can see a carving of Tutivillus on a bench end in Charlton Mackrell here and craning in solicitously to hear the tittle-tattle of two ladies of the mid-fourteenth century here, his parchment in his right hoof. Anne Marshall has posted surviving wall paintings here; I have posted her picture of the one in Little Melton, Norfolk, above (a faint Tutivillus can just be perceived standing on the bench to the right).