Abstract

Hcroic Uncertainties: Representations of the Hero in the French Epic of the Later Middle
Ages

Jonathan Cayer

2012

This study focuses on fourteenth-century chansons de geste, a corpus mostly

forgotten and/or generally maligned as derivative. By a thorough examination of the

permutations of the late epic hero, however, I show that these poems have much to teach

us about the social and cultural anxieties and aspirations of the fourteenth century public.

Reflecting the crisis and the gloom of the era, the late epic hero is, far from Roland's

towering fixity and certainty, a figure in constant need of being reconstructed and

reassembled. Through a threefold reading of who the fourteenth-century hero is or can

be, my dissertation sheds light on the crisis of values of the late Middle Ages articulated

explicitly or implicitly around the attempts of the trouveres to recover the heroes of old.

In this dissertation, I explore two poles of late epic heroism: its possibility and its

impossibility. On the one hand, the thirst for heroes; on the other, the fractured picture of

heroism. In Chapter One, I present the fragmented and diversified picture of heroism that

nonetheless coalesces around a discourse of heroic self-definition. I argue that by making

use of motifs and narrative structures from folktales (e.g., lost and stolen children raised

away from their aristocratic parents), the late epic poets engaged, through a series of

socio-economic mises en scene, the issue of who could be a hero. In the second part of

the chapter, I look at the ambiguous and uneasy figure of the late epic bastard. I show

that although he is the issue of what could have been called "romance influence" (i.e.,
sex), his presence in the poem contributes to the valorization of the epic ideal as he

always seeks to reintegrate and support the paternal lineage.

In Chapter Two, I look at the episodic appearance of the merveilleux in the late

epic and show, once again, that even though it might originally come from romance, it is

quickly reintegrated within an epic framework. However, I also show that this generic

cross-pollination either comes at a price or is the result of an initial lack. By

incorporating figures heterogeneous to the epic genre (Arthur, Morgan, faeries, etc.), the

late trouveres seem to implicitly recognize that something is missing in their picture of

heroism, that the hero has to be supplemented by something external, as he has become

insufficient to perform his chivalric duties by himself. Whether we marvel at or are

bothered by the merveilleux in the late epic, I argue that it is ultimately a symptom of a

more general malaise within the epic universe.

Chapter Three continues the discussion of epic "lack" and its need for

supplementation by examining the roles that women play in the chansons de geste.

Though they had for a long time been ignored by critics, deemed heterogeneous to the

martial world of the heroes, women come to have ever more prominent importance in the

development of the genre. I examine in particular the women who are, either

permanently or for a time, added to the heroic pantheon. They achieve such status either

by cross-dressing or, in two surprising occurrences, what one might term a "holy sex

change." I show that these women fighters can be interpreted as an index through which

we can analyze the fragmentation of the heroic ideal.

Heroic Uncertainties: Representations of the Hero
in the French Epic of the Later Middle Ages

A Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School
of
Yale University
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

by
Jonathan Cayer

Dissertation Director: R. Howard Bloch

May 2012
 UMI Number: 3525194

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 Content

-Acknowledgments IV

-Introduction 1

-Chapter One. Heroic Variations: the Hero and his Avatars 24

-Growing Away from Home 30
-The Chanson de Hugues Capet and the Rejection of Categories 43
-Proper Attire Required? 55
-The Ennobled Sidekick 62
-The Peculiar Case of the Bastard: Half-Way House to Glory 67

-Chapter Two. Marvelous Rectifications 96

-The Matter of the Matieres 98
-Maugis: Magical Knight and Knightly Magician 111
-Huon against Charlemagne: The Merveilleux as Social Remedy 125
-Fantastic Pedagogy: Tristan de Nanteuil and the Birth 130
of the Hero
-The Miraculous Edge: Deficiencies and Insufficiencies 152
in Lion de Bourges
-The Third Space of the Merveilleux 166

-Chapter Three. Generic Solidarity: Women in the Late Epic 171

-Erotic Dissonances 173
-Maidens at the Rampart and the Complementarity 179
of Female Violence
-Aye d'Avignon and Familial Shortcomings 190
-Yde, or Phallus ex Nihilo 207
-Blanchandine, Blanchandin: Sex, Spirituality, and Friendship 224

-Conclusion 244

-Appendix One 250

-Bibliography
-Primary Sources 252
-Secondary Sources 256

III
 Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my advisor, R. Howard Bloch,

for his help, insights, and encouragements over the years. 1 should especially wish to

thank him for the trust he showed by allowing me to explore my very unpopular corpus.

Where others would have balked at the idea, he proffered nothing but enthusiasm. I can

only hope that the result is worthy of his confidence.

The support provided by the students and faculty of the Yale French Department

has been nothing short of extraordinary. I thank them for six years of uninterrupted

intellectual stimulation and fellowship. To Agnes Bolton, a constant source of kindness,

levity, and guidance, a special mention is due.

I would not have been able to complete (or even write) this dissertation without

the stalwart intellectual, emotional, editorial, and grammatical support of a peerless cast

of keen readers and great friends. Grey Anderson, Rachel Corkle, James Knabe, Anne

Linton, Anne-Marie McManus, Brian Reilly, Raisa Rexer, Heather Stein, Jon

Vanderburg, and Chapman Wing, I am forever grateful for your patience with my prose

and your generosity with me.

Perhaps inevitably, the completion of a project puts one in a reminiscing state of

mind in which one reflects on beginnings. Therefore, a word of infinite gratitude is

owned to the faculty and students of the Liberal Arts College (2002-2006) for making my

life veer toward the humanities.

IV
Introduction

I have given thee condensed all the squirely drolleries that

are scattered through the swarm of the vain books of chivalry.
Cervantes.

Until recently, to write about the late chansons de geste was to write about how

dreadful they are. With impish delight (at least in my case) contemporary scholars

always seem to begin discussion of the late epic with a selection of their favorite slurs

cast at it by our great predecessors. Paulin Paris says of Tristan de Nanteuil that it is

"une oeuvre monstrueuse, informe, abondante en redites, en contradictions, en fantaisies

desordonnees et confuses." But, he continues, it may not be the poet's fault as "on ne lui

demande plus des caracteres vrais, des passions fortes, des vers bien frappes, mais

seulement des contes plaisants, singuliers, bizarres; en un mot, de simples jeux d'esprit et

d'imagination." 1 O tempora, o moresl Paul Meyer does not show more kindness to this

poem when he says that "[i]l est vrai que le style est faible, tres faible meme, que la

versification en est penible, que le vers n'arrive a sa rime qu'a grand renfort de chevilles,

que la fable, consideree au point de vue des vraisemblances, est bien souvent ridicule."

He adds, however, with more indulgence, that "on ne peut s'empecher d'admirer certains

caracteres, de trouver infmiment droles certaines situations." 2 For his part, Gaston Paris

is only saddened by the late epic, "l'epopee, nous l'avons dit, se mourait deja a la fin du

XIII e siecle: dans le XIV e , elle acheve de s'epuiser." 3 Poems certainly keep on being

1Paulin Paris, Histoire litteraire de la France (Paris: Academie des Inscription & des
Belles-Lettres, 1888), 14 th edition, XVI, 268.

2Paul Meyer, "Notice sur le roman de Tristan de Nanteuil," Jahrhuch fur romanische
und englische Literatur 9 (1868): 2.
written, but "ces poemes, ecrits avec une platitude et une prolixite rebutantes, ne

retiennent plus que de pales reflets de l'ancienne splendeur." 4

The laurel must, however, be given to Leon Gautier, whose Epopees franqaises

was the most thorough study of the chanson degeste of his time and remained influential

for decades. Despite his obvious distaste for the late epic (a result of a blend of

attachment to Classical aesthetic criteria, conservative mores, and nationalism), his

scholarly diligence made him consider these "romans en vers des XlVe et XVe siecles."

He describes his excitement at opening the Roman de Charles le Chauve and then his

crushing disappointment upon reading it: "[r]ien n'est en effet comparable a la

prodigieuse vulgarite de toutes les peripeties de ce poeme, si ce n'est l'extraordinairc

platitude de son style." 5 His reading of Hugues Capet puts him in a dejectedly pensive

mood, "[i]l faut plaindre la France si elle accorde son affection toute particuliere aux rois

qui, comme le heros de ce poeme, peuplent le royaume de leurs batards." 6 The history of

Charlemagne by Girard d'Amiens spurs him to declare with anger and disdain that "si les

mots mediocre et mediocrite n'existaient pas dans notre langue, il faudrait les creer au

benefice de Girard d'Amiens." 7 Barely a single word of praise graces the entire chapter

on the late epic. And why should there be any since "[1]'inspiration est du reste,

completement absente de tous nos poemes de la decadence?" '"Long, long, long,' tel est,

3 Gaston Paris, La litterature franq.aise au Moyen Age (Paris: Hachette, 1905), 211

4 Idem.

5 Leon Gautier, Les epopees franqaises. Etude sur les origines et I'histoire de la
litterature nationale, 2 vols. (Paris: V. Palme, 1865-68), 1: 456.

6 Ibid., 1:458.

1 I b i d , 1:464.

2
unc derniere fois, le seul mot qui qualifie bien cette poesie de commande."* Apparently,

Gautier knew his Cervantes.

If the chansons de geste of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were

castigated so vehemently by the first generations of medievalists, they were also the

victims of their general dissatisfaction with the late Middle Ages (not to say their avowed

antipathy to the Valois). "Dans l'histoire de nos epopees chevaleresques, nous appclons

"periode de decadence" tout le temps qui s'est ecoule depuis l'avenement des Valois,

depuis 1328jusqu'a nos jours," says Gautier. 9 In a similar vein, Gaston Paris considers

the period of the Hundred Years War a time of literary (as well as political) degeneration

brought on by war, certainly, but also by a lack of intellectual vigor, "[l]a litterature

fran9aise, dans ces tristes conditions, ne reagit pas contre 1'affaiblissement oil elle etait

tombee des la fin de la periode precedente: de plus en plus elle s'y laisse aller." 10 Though

he may have a few kind words for the large output of didactic literature of the period,

though he may regard Machaut and Deschamps with a certain benevolence or be amused

or entertained by Froissart from time to time, the narrative Paris offers is one of sad

decline. The age of martial and literary heroes is gone. The only texts deserving of

merits in his eyes are those in which the love of France can be felt. His parti pris comes

* Ibid., 1: 477,484.

9 Ibid., 1: 451. Earlier in the same volume, Gautier is more expansive on his dislike of the
Valois: "Aux yeux de quiconque a etudie l'histoire de la poesie fran^aise, l'avenement
des Valois est une date capital: alors tout change, alors tout se deforme. Les traditions
litteraires de la France sont brisees; la vieille poesie expire, et plusieurs siecles
s'ecouleront avant qu'on en cree une nouvelle. Plus d'epopee veritable; quelques cris
sincerement lyriques, et c'est tout. Pendant longtemps on vivra sur la poesie du passe que
Ton defigurera de plus en plus, et rien ne sera plus defigure que nos epopees nationales
(159).

10 Paris, La litterature, 210.

3
through in such statements as "Christine de Pisan, comme son maitre Eustache Morel,

aimait la France" and "Ce fut aussi un bon patriote, malgre la frivolite de plusieurs de ses

oeuvres, que le Normand Alain Chartier." 11 The problem of the late epic poems becomes

thus not only aesthetic, but also political. They do not measure up to what an epic should

be: an emblem of the national spirit that inspires patriotism. More precisely, they cannot

compare to the Oxford Chanson de Roland, the greatest medieval chanson de geste and

the most enthralling fetish of all medievalists ever since Francisque Michel unearthed it

in 1835. 12

As entertaining as it is to chronicle the melancholic or virulent outrage of Paris

pere et Jlis, Meyer, and Gautier, we remain embarrassed to admit that they were not

completely wrong. The fourteenth century does not abound in undiscovered or

misjudged epic masterpieces comparable to the Oxford Roland or to the Chanson de

Guillaume. Even Robert Bossuat, who did much in the 1950s to rescue the late cpic from

the oblivion to which it had been consigned, considered that the late chansons de geste

did not fully live up to the name: "Nous sommes en presence de documents qui ont etc

lus, recopies, remanies, parfois meme imprimes, dont la composition repondait sans

11 Ibid., 226-27. Fortunately, the lack of consideration given to the literature of the
fourteenth century is no more. Machaut, Deschamps, Christine de Pisan arc now part of
the canon of medieval literature and the bibliography dedicated to them is impressive.
The translations commissioned by Charles V have also become the focus of scholarly
interest, as well as the belittled didactic literature of the age such as Guillaume de
Deguilleville's three major pelerinage poems. A team of medievalists is now even
working on a new critical edition of that summa of fourteenth-century vernacular thought,
the Ovide moralise. Though the romance of the later Middle Ages have fared slightly
better than the late epic, serious scholarly interest is more recent.

12 For a discussion of the editorial history of this most famous text, see Mark Burde,
"Francisque Michel, Joseph Bedier and the Epic History of the First Edition of the Song
of Roland (1837)," Exemplaria 16, no.l (Spring 2004): 1-42.

4
doutc a un besoin, qui ne sont pas isoles, mais qui forment, si on les rasscmble, un genre

particulier qui n'a de l'epopee que l'apparence, et, du roman d'aventures que

rinvraisemblance et la variete." 13 Incontestably, the late epic differs from its glorious

earlier models; it would be absurd to pretend that any literary form can (or even should)

remain immutable over a period of more than 300 years.

Whereas the early chansons de geste tended to focus on one particular moment in

time and episode (the battle of Rencesvals, the struggles of Guillaume against the

Infidels, or even the extended conflict of Raoul to claim a fief he thinks should be his),

the late epic offers much more expansive and diversified narratives; it is "long, long,

long," to quote Gautier again. Although they lack the narrative unity of earlier poems

(and we may thus suspect a certain anachronistic attachment to Aristotelian aesthetic on

the part of earlier critics), the mere length of the late chansons de geste is not, of course, a

valid argument to exclude them from literary history. 14 Francis Suard, who has devoted

a considerable amount of his career to the study of these "rejetons mal-aimes de 1'arbre

de l'epopee," has highlighted and explained that their magnitude is concomitant with new

compositional impulses: 15

13 Robert Bossuat, " 'Charles le Chauve.' Etude sur le declin de l'epopee fran9aise," Les
lettres romanes 7, no. 1 (1953): 108. Other important articles by Bossuat include his "Le
roi Dagobert: heros de romans du Moyen Age," Academie des inscriptions et des belles
lettres. Comptes-rendus des sceances de I'annee 1964 (1965): 361-67; "Florent et
Octavien, chanson de geste du XlVe siecle," Romania 73(1952): 289-331.

14For a few paths of inquiry into the particularities of the late epic aesthetic, see Robert
Francis Cook, "Unity and Esthetic of the Late Chanson de geste," Olifant 11, no.2
(Summer 1986): 103-14.

15The formulation is Claude Roussel's. See his "L'automne de la chanson de geste,"

Cahiers de recherches medievales et humanistes 12 (2005): 2. URL:
http://crm. revues,org/2172

5
 La chanson de geste tardive se propose en effet de presenter l'histoire complete de
nombreux personnages, alors que les textes anterieurs limitent leur projet narratif
a une action determinee centree sur quelques protagonistes. Au lieu d'une bataille,
avec ses preparatifs et ses consequences, on nous presente la revelation d'un heros
jusque-la occulte, l'histoire de ses amours et de ses exploits et parfois le recit des
aventures de ses enfants et de leurs descendants. 16

The late epic tends to be multigenerational — perhaps a natural coalescence of the epic's

cyclical tendency now translated into a single text. As Roussel points out, "[o]n peut

ainsi verifier une fois de plus que le processus d'extrapolation cyclique se combine

etroitement avec le travail de creation." 17

The original epic creations of the fourteenth century present manifold versions of

the heroic life. Tristan de Nanteuil, with its 23,362 verses, contains the stories of

Tristan's father, mother, half-brother, wife, legitimate and illegitimate children. The Lion

de Bourges, which stands at a respectable 34,298 lines, presents a similar situation,

although further complicated by sets of twins as well as numerous minor characters who

rise to prominence and undertake their own adventures. The amplification of the

narrative is seen not only in original works produced in the fourteenth century (which

IX
number to around ten poems), but in the many remaniements of earlier works. Claude

Roussel gives us an idea of this phenomenon: "Ami et Amile passe ainsi de 3 500

decasyllables a plus de 13 000 alexandrins, Jourdain de Blayes, qui en constitue une

suite, de 4 500 decasyllables a 23 182 alexandrins." 19 Dominique Boutet sums up the

16Francis Suard, "L'epopee franfaise tardive (XIV e -XV e )," in Etudes de Philologie
Romane et d'Histoire Litteraire offertes a J. Horrent, ed. J.-M. d'Heur and N. Cherubini
(Liege: [s. n.] 1980), 450.

17 Roussel, "L'automne," 4.
Io
1 have reproduced in appendix an adapted list established by William Kibler.

6
technique: "Proliferation et surenchere: tels sont les principes qui guident Taction des

remanieurs des epopees tardives. II s'agit la de tendances plus generates, que l'on

rencontre aussi bien dans des chansons originales comme Lion de Bourges: le XIV C siecle

aime a produire des textes-miroirs ou se refletent des souvenirs du genre tout entier, ou

1'epopee paraTt deriver vers le roman-fleuve." 20

We find in the late epic a diversity of new (or renewed) elements: new sets of

adventures, the presence of love and women, the growing input from folktales,

accentuated and sometimes random hagiographical undertones, the explosion of the

geography and of the chronotope, etc. This has not only disgusted earlier generations of

scholars, but puzzled modern critics eager to explore the intricacies of these last epic

spawns. A common, but too convenient perspective consists in simply ascribing the

transformations of the chanson de geste to "romance influence." Critics, unable to resist

the old truism according to which the chanson de geste was displaced by the roman,

reason that the changes of the epic must be the result of romance contamination. (One

might note that the temptation is always to use implicitly pejorative terms to describe

such generic cross-pollination, thus seen as pollution). This tendency remains even

though many "etudes ont demontre que, malgre les niveaux multiples auxquels ont lieu

des rapports intergeneriques, le roman n'engloutit pas 1'epopee au XIII C siecle; il s'agirait

plutot de confluences bien perceptibles mais intermittentes." 21 More recently, Sarah Kay

19 Roussel, "L'automne," 3.

20Dominique Boutet, La chanson de geste. Forme et signification d'une ecriture epique

au Moyen Age (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1993), 231-32.

21Donald Maddox, "Les figures du romancsques du discours epique et la confluence

generique," in Essor et fortune de la chanson de geste dans 1'Europe et I'Orient Latin.

7
has also attempted to rectify this all-too-easy view of literary history by pointing out how

the "overwhelming majority of chansons de geste are thus contemporary with romances.

It is not surprising that there should be mutual interference between the two genres

Robert Cook also notes that "roman, romanesque impliquent l'assujettissement

par l'heureux rival." But he also emphasizes the simultaneity of epic and romance

production: "La plupart des chansons de geste connues sont, on le sait tres bien, de la fin

du XII° siecle, du XIII C , et du XIVV' 23 Such factors should make the critic wary of any

supposed narrative of epic decline or displacement.

The growing import of "romanesque" elements in the late epic has led to a

confusion of nomenclatures and to many false starts at defining what we are, in fact,

dealing with. Gautier is reluctant to call the late chansons de geste thus and prefers

instead "derniers romans en vers," which is both naming and a bit of name-calling.

Scholars of the Old French epic are also familiar with the division established by Martin

de Riquier between the "epopee jongleresque a ecouter" and the "epopee romanesque a

lire" — a differentiation that implies a fundamental transformation in both the content

and the reception of the poems. 24 Even the terms that I have so far employed, "late epic"

Actes du I)C Congres International de la Societe Rencesvals pour I'Etude des Epopees
Romanes. Padoue-Venise, 29 aout- 4 septembre 1982, 2 vols., (Modena: Mucchi Editore,
1984), 2: 517.

22Sarah Kay, The Chansons de geste in the Age of Romance: Political Fictions (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1995), 5.

23Robert Francis Cook, "Mechants romans et epopee fran^aise: pour une philologie
profonde," Esprit createur 23 (1983): 68. (italics are his)

">4 ' . .
" Martin de Riquier, "Epopee jongleresque a ecouter et epopee romanesque a lire," in La
technique litteraire des chansons de geste. Actes du Colloque de Liege (septembre 1957)
(Paris: Societe d'Edition "Les Belles Lettres," 1959), 75-84.

8
and "late chanson de gesteare charged, since not so long ago they were applied to

poems from the early thirteenth century! 25 William Kibler, one of the pioneers of the

study of the late chansons de geste, suggested in 1982 a tempting solution to this problem

of definition. In tacit agreement with Bossuat's judgment that these poems represent "un

genre particulier qui n'a de l'epopee que l'apparence, et, du roman d'aventures que

l'invraisemblance et la variete," Kibler argued that scholars had been wrong all along to

see these poems as chansons de geste. 26 Rather than applying mistaken grids of

evaluation, "au lieu de mepriser les poemes des XIII C et XIV e siccles comme des oeuvres

abatardies et degenerees, je prefere les considerer comme des exemplaires d'un sous-

genre epique, ou mieux encore, d'un genre a part, que Ton pourrait appeler les chansons

d'aventures.'''' 21 The convenience and appeal of the new denomination are obvious. By

removing the late epic poems (now chanson d'aventures) from the shadow of the

25This is, for example, how William Calin refers to the early thirteenth-century poems
he studies in his Epic Quest: Studies in Four Old French Chansons de geste (Baltimore:
The John Hopkins University Press, 1966).

26 Bossuat, " 'Charles le Chauve,'"108.

27 William Kibler, "La 'chanson d'aventures,in Essor et fortune, 2: 510. Kibler

expanded on his views in "Relectures de l'epopee," in Au carrefour des routes d 'Europe:
La chanson de geste (Publications du CUERMA: Universite de Provence, 1987), 1: 103-
40. The term "chanson d'aventure" (singular) had already been used by Wallenskold in
his edition of Florence de Rome from 1907. This seems, in retrospect, quite strange. The
poem does recount the adventures of two brothers (one good, one evil) who go away to
Rome to seek glory and riches (and rectifications for the wrongs suffered by their
family). However, the crux of the poem is the wrongful accusations against Florence, her
exile, and her quasi-sanctification at the end, which would bring the poem much closer in
spirit, at least in part, to Adenet's Berte as grans pies or to La Belle Helene de
Constantinople. See Florence de Rome: chanson d'aventure du premier quart du XIHe
siecle, 2 vols, ed. A Wallenskold (Paris: Firmin-Didot and C' e , 1907-1909). Paul Meyer
had qualified Brun de la Montaigne, a poem also written in the epic form, of "roman
d'aventures." This might be a more justifiable decision. See my Chapter 2, note 106 for
more.

9
Chanson de Roland, we can fully embrace them for what they are: "Les chansons

tardives [...] sont tres mal servies lorsqu'on les compare a la Chanson de Roland, non

seulement parce que la Chanson de Roland est une oeuvre exceptionelle, mais parce

28
qu'elle est une oeuvre differente."

The chanson d'aventures is different from the chanson de geste not only in terms

of formal characteristics (the length of the laisse, the structure of the poem, the

versification, etc.), but also with respect to its ideological and social components. Kibler

"prefcre limiter I'appelation de 'chanson de geste' aux seules chansons animees par

l'esprit guerrier, et qui enseignent et 'enculturent' les valeurs traditionnellcs." 29 Having

recognized this, we are then able to "faire ressortir leur fonction sociale, leur structure

episodique, et leur valeur litteraire" without the burden of having to compare them

constantly to the "real" chansons de geste. i0 As Claude Roussel commented, however,

"[l]e concept est commode, et correspond a une intuition tenace," but also "tend peut-etre

a surestimer les ecarts et a etablir artificiellement des seuils procedant d'une illusion

retrospective." 31

We could speculate that the new terminology was designed, in part, to placate

decades of discontentment with the epic production of the late Middle Ages and to create

a critical terrain where analysis could be started afresh. Nonetheless, it is undeniable that

it has the potential to lead into a scholarly cul-de-sac and to produce more ambiguities

28 Kibler, '"La 'chanson d'aventures,"' 515.

29 Idem.

30 Idem.

31 Roussel, "L'automne," 2. See also Cook, "Mechants romans," 72.

10
than it was meant to solve. How can one evaluate whether sufficient "esprit guerrier" is

present in a poem, or whether the "valeurs traditionnelles" are promoted enough to justify

the appellation of a chanson de geste'? Unwittingly perhaps, the new terminology would

then seem to implicitly reproduce and confirm the prejudices against the late epic, doing

disservice to the very notion of literary innovation and evolution. I tend to agree with

Roussel's assement that, "[e]n matiere de conquete de la narrativite, la chanson de geste a

fait seule une grande partie du chemin et revele une remarquable, et a tout prendre

surprenante, aptitude a rinnovation." 32 That the chanson de geste's tendency to absorb

elements deemed heteroclite has been described as corruption or decadence rather than

innovation and renewal is more indicative of the state of contemporary criticism than of

the poems themselves. 1 ''

As Roussel also points out, "ces dernieres chansons de geste ne revendiquent ni

n'affichent aucune rupture." 34 Even though the authors might refer to their poems as

either "chanson" or "roman," the two terms are much more interchangeable than we

sometimes acknowledge. The writers of the chansons de geste clearly intended to

express their belonging to a tradition, despite the vagaries of thematic and formal

transformations. It is true that many late epics often open with statements that could be

construed as "romanesque." Thus Florent et Octavien begins with an appeal to the "clers

32Claude Roussel, "Mise en prose ou mise en roman?," in Du roman courtois au roman

baroque: actes du colloque des 2-5 juillet 2002, eds. Emmanuel Bury and Francine Mora
(Paris: Belles lettres, 2004), 349.

33 Dominique Boutet talks of this holistic tendency in his La chanson de geste, 206.

34 Roussel, "L'automne," 2
ct lays" to listen to a noble song "d'armes et d'amours." 35 Yet, the epic framework is

quickly reestablished as the poem arches back to the historical veneer of the chanson de

geste: ".VII. cens ans et .XIII., la cronique l'aprent, / Avoit un roy en France de bon

entcndement. / Dagoubert avoit nom, moult avoit d'essTent, [...]" (vv. 10-12). 36 A

similar pattern occurs in the Bdtard de Bouillon which begins with eight verses evoking

sweet springtime and the delightful consolations it brings, but hurriedly reverts to its epic

subject matter, the Crusades: "Seignour, a ichel tamps dont je fai mention / Fu li roys

Bauduins ou Temple Psalemon." 37 The same could be said of the overwhelming majority

of late epics, original works and remaniements alike. The valence (a central term to this

study elaborated in the chapters below) of the chanson de geste, both formally and

thematically, remains well alive in these texts. Despite the obvious ecarts so regretted by

critics, despite the broadening of the geographical and temporal landscapes, despite the

growing presence of the merveilleux and accrued weight of folkloric elements, the epic

tradition still very much continues. Francois Suard asks: "Si l'interet de tous s'attache a

des structures narratives nouvelles, pourquoi n'a-t-on pas retenu la forme du roman, et

notamment du roman en prose, parfaitement adaptee aux recits les plus complexes?" 38 1

35Florent et Octavien: chanson de geste du XlVe siecle, 2 vols., ed. Noelle Laborderie
(Paris: Honore Champion, 1991), 1: vv. 1-3. For more, see Claude Rousssel, "D'armes et
d'amour: I'aventure dans les dernieres chansons de geste,'" Litterales 31 (2003): 163-
178.

36Pierre-Yves Badel has examined the implications of using monorhyme or assonance

rime in texts that cannot be categorized as chanson de geste, see his "La chanson de geste
hors de la chanson de geste," in Plaisir de I'epopee, ed. Gisele Mathieu-Castcllani (Saint-
Denis: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 2000), 155-72.

37Le Bdtard de Bouillon : chanson de geste, ed. Robert Francis Cook (Geneva: Librarie
Droz, 1972), vv. 9-10.

12
suggest that this question is its own answer — simultaneously the question and the

answer to the survival of the epic genre. 39

There are stakes at play not only in the formal, internal definition of the late epic,

but also its initial reception. Because of the near-complete absence of named patrons in

the chanson de geste and the anonymity of most of the authors, we are left with scant

evidence as to the whos and whys of the late epic production. This issue touches, of

course, the problem of the function of the epic. 40 Is it, as Joseph Duggan and others have

argued, a genre devoted to the promotion of martial virtues and the instilment of military

courage? 41 A form of popular hagiography destined to inspire pity and devotion among

pilgrims, religious folks and lay people alike, as the links of many such poems with

monasteries would indicate? 42 Are the songs of the barons revokes grouping designed to

soothe the bruised egos of feudal lords whose power was waning (and, in the case of the

38 Suard, "L'epopee franQaise," 453.

39Indeed, this is precisely what will happen with the disappearance of original verse
narrative in the fifteenth century, as a study of the mise en prose of the Old French epic
demonstrates, there is a quest for more brevity and more accuracy. For more, see,
Francois Suard, "La tradition epique aux XlVe et XVe siecles," Revue des sciences
humaines 55, no. 183 (1981-83): 99.

40Most of the following is informed by the discussion of past and current views offered
by Paula Leverage. See her Reception and Memory: A Cognitive Approach to the
Chanson de geste (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010), 23-128.

41See Joseph J. Duggan, "Social function of the Medieval Epic in the Romance
Literatures," Oral Tradition 1, no.3 (1986): 728-66. Let us also mention the ever-so-
tempting anecdote (though perhaps false) that the Song of Roland would have been sung
before the Battle of Hasting. See Jean Rychner, La chanson de geste. Essai stir I'art
epique des jongleurs (Geneva: Librairie E. Droz, 1955), 16; Edmond Faral, Les jongleurs
en France au Moyen Age (Paris: Honore Champion, 1910), 56-7.

42 Joseph Bedier was, of course, the most prominent exponent of this theory.

13
fourteenth century, almost completely subdued by royal authority)? 43 Or is the late epic

simply mass entertainment for the populace? In the case of the Old French epic output, a

tentative "Yes" could be muttered for each of these hypotheses. The "oral" performance

of the poem appears to be inherently addressed to a broad audience of listeners who are

possibly of diverse backgrounds, and the whole community is implicated in the epic

sacred mission and feud. Responses to the poems might indeed also vary from class to

class or within a particular group itself. 44

Following again the division between the courtly novels and the chansons de

geste in the evolution of literary tastes (despite, let us recall, their simultaneity), there has

always been a strong inclination to see the epic as a more "popular" genre. 45 Yet, the

work of Keith Busby on the diffusion and transmission of manuscripts reveals,

unsurprisingly perhaps, that the overwhelming majority of chanson de geste manuscripts

were either owned by monasteries or by the aristocracy, and that only a small fraction

43This was, in some ways, Erich Kohler's view. See his "Quelques observations d'ordre
historico-sociologique sur les rapports entre la chanson de geste et le roman courtois," in
Chanson de geste und hofischer roman. Heidelberger Kolloquium (Heidelberg: Car.
Winter universitatsverlag, 1963), 27.

44The "orality" of the late epic is doubtful. N. H. J. van den Boogaard has attempted to
demonstrate how such a massive work like Tristan de Nanteuil could have been divided
into fifteen different days of recitation (taken down by a scribe), but the demonstration
remains unconvincing. See his "Le caractere oral de la chanson de geste tardive," in
Langite et litterature franqaises du Moyen Age, ed. R. E. V. Stuip (Assen: Amsterdam:
VanGorcum, 1978), 12-24.

45It was notably the opinion of Gautier, Meyer, Labande, and Bossuat. See Suard, "L'
epopee fran^aise," 457.

14
were held by the bourgeoisie. 46 When it comes to the late chansons de geste, Francois

Suard highlights how many of our texts were hosted in princely libraries. 47 Despite such

evidence, an instinct remains among medievalists to see the late chansons de geste as a

cultural product of consumption for the "people." Ceding to the temptation to say that

what is seen as bad must be for the hoi polloi — have not the fabliaux suffered from the

same misconception? — many critics have assumed that these works must have been

intended for and listened to by an unsophisticated audience. 48 Consider again Paul Meyer

on Tristan de Nanteuii. "Sans doute, tous ces personnages et d'autres encore, sont tout

d'une piece, ils sont peu nuances, mais e'est ainsi que le peuple (et on verra bicn que

Tristan n'a pas ete fait pour les raffines) con9oit ses heros." 49 Bossuat quotes Gaston

Paris favorably when the latter scholar writes that these poems are "destinees a satisfaire

non plus la clientele des chateaux et des cours, mais le frustre public des rues." MI More

recently, Kibler has emitted a similar opinion, albeit with a positive spin. Faisant de

mauvaise fortune hon coeur, Kibler again implicitly accepts the critique leveled against

the late epic, but turns it on its head:

11 ne s'agit pas d'une litterature serieuse, morale, figee dans des formes stcriles,
mais d'une litterature populaire dans le meilleur sens du mot. Bien qu'en butte a
I'incomprehension des critiques litteraires depuis plus de deux millenaires, cette

46See Keith Busby, Codex and Context: Reading Old French Verse Narrative in
Manuscript, 2 vols., (Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi, 2002), 2: 638-751; Leverage,
Reception and Memory, 69-106.

47 Suard, "L'epopee fran9aise," 457.

48
For the reception of the fabliaux as "bad literature," see R. Howard Bloch, The Scandal
of the Fabliaux (Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press, 1986), 1-21.

49 Meyer, "Notice sur le roman de Tristan de Nanteuii," 4.

50 Bossuat, "Charles le Chauve," 107.

15
 litterature franchement populaire n'a jamais cesse d'exister. Heurcuscmcnt lc
peuple a toujours pu reconnaitre ce qui lui plaisait et a toujours su ignorer lcs edits
des critiques. Je tiens aussi a souligner que par "le peuple" je comprends ici non
seulement la bourgeoisie naissante, mais l'aristocratie provinciate [...]. 51

As we saw in the case of the chanson d'aventures terminology, Kibler's refraining of the

issue is tempting and understandable. By focusing on its popular appeal, he places the

debate around the worth and aesthetic of the late epic on a different plane altogether. The

fact that this new literature was designed "to please" would also partly explain away its

dubious humor and scabrous details, not to mention the generic interferences that so

offended earlier critics. 52 The notion is moreover buffeted — albeit anachronistically —

by the fact that variations on and permutations of the late epic were destined to a long life

up to the nineteenth century, in the form of manuscript prose novels or, later, cheap,

printed books. 53

The theory of production for popular consumption sidesteps, however, important

material and ideological factors. If the chanson de geste was destined to a brilliant future

51 Kibler, "Relectures," 112.

52Even Edmond-Rene Labande, in one of the first major studies on the late epic, looked
with disapproval on many characteristics of his subject, Baudouin de Sebourc. See his
Etude sur Baudouin de Sebourc, chanson de geste. Legende poetique de Baudouin II du
Bourg, roi de Jerusalem (Paris: Librairie E. Droz, 1940), especially chapter 3
(Utilisations des effets comiques).

53 More and more work is being done on the survival of the epic in the early modern and
modern periods. See for example Sarah Baudelle-Michels, Les avatars d'une chanson de
geste. De Renaut de Montauban aux Quatre Fils Aymon (Paris: Honore Champion,
2006), especially 13-31 to gain a perspective on the magnitude of rewriting of the legend.
Emmanuelle Poulain-Gautret has produced similar results about Ogier in her La tradition
litteraire d'Ogier le Danois apres le XIIf . Permanence et renouvellement du genre
epique medieval (Paris: Honore Champion, 2005). The reader may also consult the
collections of articles exploring the diversity of the survival of the chanson de geste in
French literature by Bernard Guidot recently published, Chansons de geste et reecritures
(Orleans: Paradigme, 2008).

16
as litterature de colportage, its transformation into prose in the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries was not an altogether "popular" endeavor. While many of the manuscripts of

the last chansons de geste are rather unpolished products that were not given a lot of care,

the popularity of their themes and characters remain attested in the princely courts in the

form of the mise en prose, as Georges Doutrepont has amply demonstrated. 54 If our epics

were of so little value to the "raffines," it would be difficult to explain the commisioning

of prose versions by that most refined court of Burgundy (certainly a powerhouse of high

culture), among others. The "translations" of four chansons de geste (including Hugues

Capet and Lion de Bourges) by the French-educated countess Elisabeth von Nassau-

Saarbrticken similarly points to a public that included the high aristocracy.^5 Hugues

Capet may have survived in only one manuscript, but the existence of its translation

should invite us to consider it a text whose diffusion was much broader than its lone copy

would suggest. The ideological factors that contradict the idea of the late epic as a

fundamentally populaire genre are the persistence and survival of generic and thematic

conservatism. 56 Though it is indeed true that the idea of "adventures" plays a greater and

54See Georges Doutrepont, Les mises en prose des epopees et des romans chevaleresques
an XlVe et XVe siecles (Bruxelles: Palais des academies, 1939).

55 In the same vein, if the Lion de Bourges manuscripts tend to be of poor quality, let us
admire the craft that went into its German adaptation, Herpin, by considering the
fifteenth-century Heidelberg manuscript Cod. Pal. Germ. 152 that can be viewed here
lutp:/7digi.ub.uni-heidclbcrg.dc\ / diglit/cpg 152/0007. For more on Elisabeth von Nassau-
Saarbriicken, see Albert Classen, "Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbriicken," in German
Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation 1280-1580, eds. James Hardin and Max
Reinhart (Detroit: Gale Research, 1997), 42-47.

56 Though we should be remiss to think that a picture of a chivalric life was necessarily
intended for knights. Daniel Poirion underlines precisely this point when he writes that
"si les chevaliers revent de bergeres, les petites gens peuvent rever de combats, surtout si
1'auteur sait les interesser au sort de quelques heros qui agissent au nom de la

17
greater role in the late chansons de geste, we are nonetheless always presented with a

social structure that resembles closely that of earlier poems. Fractures, cracks, and points

of rupture are visible, it is true, but there is a profound conservatism inherent in these

poems. We have to admit that the epic no longer appears to fulfill its function as a

conveyer and mirror of historical reality. For Michael Heintze, the depiction of the

selfsame feudal world in the late epic no longer reflects the travails of a struggling feudal

aristocracy, but their nostalgic attachment to a past that is long gone: "Anachronisme et

utopie - voila les deux poles qui marquent la relation entre la poesie heroique de basse

epoque et la realite historique. [...] Desormais, la fonction de la poesie heroique consiste

a articuler les nostalgies irrealisables d'une classe sociale sur le declin." 57 In these last

feeble attempts at recovering what has been lost, we can thus recognize a general trait
co
long associated with the fourteenth century: melancholic nostalgia.

That said, Kibler's argument about the popular nature of the late epic, and its

popular public, coexists with the thesis about its residual aristocratic appeal. In other

words, we have to argue for a diversified audience for the late epic. In his late-thirteenth-

communaute." See his "Chanson de geste ou epopee? Remarques sur la definition d'un
genre," Travaux de linguistiques et de litterature 10, no.2 (1972): 13

57Michael Heintze, "Les chansons de geste tardives et la realite historique," in Actes du

Xf Congres International de la Societe Rencesvals, Real Academia de Buenas Letras 21
(1990), 340-41.

58This is, after all, the underlying thesis of one of the most influential study on the later
Middle Ages. See Johan Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, trans. Rodney J.
Payton and Ulrich Mammitzsch, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), chapter 5
(the Heroic Life). Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet's work on fourteenth-century poetry
also evokes this notion, even makes it a central theme of the poetry of the period, see her
La couleur de la melancolie: la frequentation des livres au XIVe siecle, 1300-1415 (Paris:
Hatier, 1993).

18
century treatise, De musica, the cleric Jean de Grouchy offers us insights into the

performance (and meaning) of the chanson de geste for a medieval audicnce.

Cantum vcro gestualem dicimus in quo gesta heroum et antiquorum partum opera
recitantur, sicut vita et martyria sanctorum et proelia et adversitates quas antique
viri pro fide et veritati passi sunt, sicuti vita beati Stephani protomartyris et
historia Regis Karoli. Cantus autem iste debet antiquis et civibus laborantibus et
mediocribus ministrari dum requiescunt ab opera consueto, ut auditis miseriis et
calamitatibus alioum suas facilius sustineant et quilibet opus suum alacrius
aggrediatur. Et ideo iste cantus valet ad conservationem totius civitatis. 59

The chanson de geste therefore provides a valuable service to the community

(.conservationem totius civitatis) by strengthening the morale and resolve of the poor, the

elderly, the workers and the general populace of lower standing. The epic (as opposed to

other kinds of public recitation seen with much less indulgence) thus performs a civic and

moral function and is addressed to specific groups, and yet to many groups

simultaneously. Works on the late epic by Cook, Georges and Roussel have also

emphasized the ambient morality (though diluted) of many late epic poems either through

the overwhelming presence of hagiographical elements, sermonizing tirades, or pithy

proverbs. 60 This would then seem to point us again toward the epic as moralizing

literature for the lower classes.

59Cited in Leverage, Reception and Memory, 43. For more (and a differing view), see
Christopher Page, The Owl and the Nightingale: Musical Life and Ideas in France 1100-
1300 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), especially 1-41.

60 See, among many, Roussel's "Saints et heros dans quelques chansons de geste du XlVe
siecle," Litterales 14 (1994): 125-143 and his Conter de geste au XlVe siecle: Inspiration
folklorique et ecriture epique dans La Belle Helene de Constantinople (Geneva: Droz,
1998), especially 231-326; Robert Francis Cook, "Baudouin de Sebourc, un poeme
cdifiant?," Olifant 14, no.2 (1989): 115-35; Alban Georges, Tristan de Nanteuil. Ecriture
et imaginaire epiques au XlVe siecle (Paris: Honore Champion, 2006), especially 623-ff.

19
 More recently, however, Paula Leverage has argued that we should not take Jean

de Grouchy's statement at face value. For this critic, the "debet [...] ministrari" of the

chanson de geste to the poor and the elderly should not be read as descriptive, but as

prescriptive: "[TJogether with his idealistic intent of bringing about social good through

literature, and his concern for the "whole" community or city, [his prescription] suggests

that Johannes de Grocheio is not so much describing the habitual audience of the

chansons de geste as innovatively expanding its ranks."61 In either case, the chanson de

geste still seems destined to be seen as a form of entertaining didacticism: "Fautc de

temoignages externes suffisamment nombreux et fiables, le public reel des dernieres

chansons de geste demeure difficile a identifier." 62 Confronted with scant testimonies

about the diffusion of these texts, it is perhaps wiser to turn to what the poems themselves

reveal about their audience — and to give these statements some credencc! It would be

an act of particular bad faith to dismiss the testimonies offered by the poets, even if they

be only gestures to what was felt as prescribed. Roussel has teased out many of the

interpellations to a public (imaginary or not) in the late epic and has emphasized how the

appeals of the jongleurs inscribed in the text have a "valeur totalisante."63 The Florent et

Octavien poet calls on the "clers et lays, trestous communement" to listen; the Clarisse et

Florent author on the "due et prince et contor, / Dames, pucelles, bourgois et vavassor;"

and the Lion de Bourges author on "chevaillier et baron, / Bourgoises et bourgois, gent de

61 Leverage, Memory and Reception, 43.

62Claude Roussel, "Les dernieres chansons et leur public," in Plaist vos oi'r vone cancan
valiant? Melanges offerts a Franqois Suard, eds. Dominique Boutet, Marie-Madeleine
Castellani, Francois Ferrand and Aime Petit (Lille: Conseil Scicntifique de l'Universite
Charles-de-Gaulle, 1999), 2: 819.

"ibid., 2: 810.

20
religion." 64 Whether these are mere evocations of an ideal public or an actual

representation of the audience of the late epic, we have to keep in mind that our

polysemous poems were written, at least in theory, for a heteroclite group of people. The

chanson de geste remains a collective experience, geared, perhaps, toward both nostalgic

lords and the "people" in search of solace.

A mixed audience listening to mixed messages about adventures or love or piety

or glory-seeking or sex; poems imbued with conservatism and archaic tendencies talking

about feudalism in a world of feudalism in decline. These are the shifting sands that will

underpin (or undermine) any discussion of the late epic, including my own. The beauty

and horror of these poems lie precisely in the tensions expressed between a desire to

preserve tradition and the transformations, innovations (or degradations) that we

nonetheless witness. And yet, a simple and obvious constant element of these poems

remains the focus on heroism — a factor that provided the initial impetus for this

dissertation. I am in full agreement with Suard when he states that "[l]a deuxieme

caracteristique des chansons tardives est la mise en scene de personnages d'un type

nouveau. Au heros epique traditionnel, dont les fautes eventuelles - demesure, temerite,

cruaute - sont la ran^on d'une valeur hyperbolique, se substituent des figures dans

lesquelles la prouesse fait bon menage avec des traits non chevaleresques." 65 Yet, the

present study seeks to nuance this assessment of the new epic hero: maybe we are not

dealing with "substitutions," but with uncertain reproductions. There are as many tragic

flaws in our late heroes as there were in their literary ancestors. It is true that the

MIbid, 2: 810-11.

65 Suard, "L'epopee franfpaise," 451

21
struggles they face are often different; the world of the epic has changed. Consequently,

the hero has also undergone transformations. This transformation, however, is not the

result of the decadence of the genre and of the lessening of the heroic ideal, but of the

attempts (or failures) of the poets to fully replicate the heroes of old. Thus, if we agree

that the late epic is marked by archaizing tendencies (as I do), the hero himself becomes

the symbol of an irrecoverable ideal, producing points of rupture, heroic uncertainties.

This study presents itself as a chronicle of the trials and tribulations, of the literary

tdtonnements, of the fourteenth-century trouveres who sought to recreate what no longer

was.

In this dissertation, I explore two poles of late epic heroism: its possibility and its

impossibility. On the one hand, the thirst for heroes; on the other, the fractured picture of

heroism. In Chapter One, I present the fragmented and diversified picture of heroism that

nonetheless coalesces around a discourse of heroic self-definition. I argue that by making

use of motifs and narrative structures from folktales (e.g., lost and stolen children raised

away from their aristocratic parents), the late epic poets engaged, through a series of

socio-economic mises en scene, the issue of who could be a hero. In the second part of

the chaptcr, I look at the ambiguous and uneasy figure of the late epic bastard. I show

that although he is the issue of what could have been called "romance influence" (i.e.,

sex), his presence in the poem contributes to the valorization of the epic ideal as he

always seeks to reintegrate and support the paternal lineage.

In Chapter Two, I look at the episodic appearance of the merveilleux in the late

epic and show, once again, that even though it might originally come from romance, it is

quickly reintegrated within an epic framework. However, I also show that this generic

22
cross-pollination either comes at a price or is the result of an initial lack. By

incorporating figures heterogeneous to the epic genre (Arthur, Morgan, faeries, etc.), the

late trouveres seem to implicitly recognize that something is missing in their picture of

heroism, that the hero has to be supplemented by something external, as he has become

insufficient to perform his chivalric duties by himself. Whether we marvel at or are

bothered by the merveilleux in the late epic, I argue that it is ultimately a symptom of a

more general malaise within the epic universe.

Chapter Three continues the discussion of epic "lack" and its need for

supplementation by examining the roles that women play in the chansons de geste.

Though they had for a long time been ignored by critics, deemed heterogeneous to the

martial world of the heroes, women come to have ever more prominent importance in the

development of the genre. I examine in particular the women who are, either

permanently or for a time, added to the heroic pantheon. They achieve such status cither

by cross-dressing or, in two surprising occurrences, by what one might term a "holy sex

change." I show that these women fighters can be interpreted as an index through which

we can analyze the fragmentation of the heroic ideal.

No final and definite picture of heroism will result from these three distinct

approaches to its representation. Indeed, a monolithic definition would be antithetical to

both my argument and to the poems themselves. By its very diversity, by its polysemous

playfulness and expansiveness, the late epic cannot be distilled. The absence of core is,

precisely and paradoxically, its essence. The aim of this study is thus to present the

myriad variations the notion of the epic hero undergoes through a series of trials and

errors, of additions and suppressions, of heroic uncertainties.

23
Chapter I

Heroic Variations: The Hero and his Avatars

Toward the end of the summer of 1380, the body of Bertrand du Guesclin (1320-

1380), Constable of France, was laid to rest in the royal necropolis of Saint-Denis. 1 He

was among the few people not of royal blood to be interred in the venerable basilica, a

crowning achievement to a life that had begun rather inauspiciously. 2 Born into a Breton

family of the lower nobility, Bertrand was despised by both his mother and father in his

youth as ugly, unintelligent, and ill-tempered. According to his panegyrist, the trouvere

Cuvelier, his own mother not only wished him dead, but also did not shy away from

telling him so on many occasions. 3 In 1337, mounted on a shabby nag and wearing a

borrowed and battered suit of armor, Bertrand entered a tournament in Rennes. Despite

his poor equipment, he was unequivocally declared the winner. When the time camc to

decide to whom the prize would go, the heralds cried "A eel aventureux venu

1"Body" might not be the right term. Embalming proved inadequate. His retinue boiled
his flesh and left it in the Church of the Minorites at Montferrand. The King allowed his
heart to be transported to the Dominican church of Dinan, in Bertrand's native Brittany.
See Richard Vernier, The Flower of Chivalry: Bertrand du Guesclin and the Hundred
Years War (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2003), 5.

2 Among those few Alphonse de Brienne, count d'Eu and companion of Louis IX during
the Eight Crusade, in which he also died, was interred at Saint-Denis in 1270. Although
not technically a member of the French royal family, his father John of Brienne had been
King of Jerusalem and Latin Emperor of Constantinople. His presence among the tombs
of kings and great nobles is thus not altogether surprising.

3 We find the theme of the child rejected by his parents in the fourteenth-century epic
Theseus de Cologne, in which the young Theseus is also born ugly, although it is because
his mother had laughed at a woman with a deformed child.
nouvellement!" 4 This display of martial prowess marked both the beginning of a glorious

career and finally earned Bertrand the respect of his father, with whom he had refused to

joust out of filial piety. Filled with a new-found regard for his son's valor and touched by

his deference, Bertrand's father declared contritely: "Certes, biau filz, dist il, je vous

acertiffie, / Jamais ne vous feray si grande vilonnie / Que j'ay fait envers vous tous les

jours de ma vie" (vv. 780-82).

From this tournament onward, Bertrand established himself as an indefatigable

fighter and skillful leader: first under Charles de Blois in Brittany's War of Succession,

and afterward in the service of the French Crown. He was so favored by Charles V that

the king paid a ransom of 100,000 gold doublons for his release in 1368, and soon after,

in 1370, appointed him Constable of France. The ugly brat from Brittany now talked to

the King of France's brothers as a near equal. 5 Not since the great achievements of

Guillaume le Marechal (1146-1219) had an impoverished knight raised himself so high

through sheer strength and cunning. 6 Significantly, when Cuvelier sat down a few years

after Bertrand's death to create the literary portrait of a great national hero, a man deemed

4Cuvelier, La Chanson de Bertrand du Guesclin de Cuvelier, 3 vols., ed. Jean-Claude

Faucon (Toulouse : Editions Universitaires du Sud, 1991), 1: v. 764.

5 The roles of the great officers of the Crown gain in prestige in the late Middle Ages.
However, their positions were not always as secure as it may appear, as the fates of the
marmoutiers after the death of Charles V demonstrate. For a discussion of the evolution
of royal appointments, see Raymond Cazelles, Un probleme d'evolution et d'integration:
les Grands Officiers de la Couronne de France sous I 'administration nouvelle au Moyen
Age (Milan: Estrato dagli "Annali della Fondazione italiana per la storia administrativa,
1964).

6Both Bertrand and Guillaume have received extensive treatment by writers, amateurs as
well as scholars. The impressive bibliography on both men, from their death up to the
present, testifies to a lasting fascination with the idea of the self-made man. For
bibliographical information on Bertrand up to 1991, see La Chanson de Bertrand, 3: 409-
12.
25
the tenth preux, he did not choose prose or rhymed couplet. He opted rather for the

heroic form of the chanson de geste, and this poem became the last original epic creation

of the fourteenth century. 7

That a man with Bertrand's origins and character could be mourned by Eustachc

Deschamps as "la fleur des preux et la gloire de la France" testifies to evolving and

contradictory notions of what a knight was or should be in the late Middle Ages.* As

Dominique Boutet and Armand Strubel document in their study of literature and politics

in the later Middle Ages, many observers in fourteenth-century France were profoundly

troubled by what they saw as a decline in the chivalric ethos. 9 The numerous routings of

French knights during the first decades of the Hundred Years War did little to improve

matters. After the infamous battle of Poitiers, where king Jean II was captured by the

Black Prince, an anonymous poet wrote a biting indictment of the chivalric class, echoing

Roland's concern before the battle of Rencesvals: "De tells gent ne puent aistre dicte

bonne chanson." 10 Of course, concerns about the decline of chivalry started much earlier

(or had always been part of reflections on the matter). In the fourteenth century, one man

7 For a list of epic poems composed or rewritten in the fourteenth century, see Francois
Suard, "L'epopee fran9aise tardive (XlVe-XVe s.)" in Etudes de philologie romane et
d'histoire litteraire offertes a Jules Horrent, eds. Jean-Marie D'Heur and Nicoletta
Cherubini (Tounai: GEDIT, 1980), 458-460.

xEustache Deschamps, "Ballade sur le trepas de Bertrand du Guesclin" in Oeuvres

completes d'Eustache Deschamps, 11 vols., (Paris: Librairie de Firmin Didot et C'°,
1880), 2: 27-28.

9 Dominique
Boutet and Armand Strubel, Litterature, politique et societe dans la France
du Moyen Age (Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 1979), 197-214.

l() The
full text of the Complainte sur la Bataille de Poitiers is reproduced in Charles de
Beaurepaire's article. See his "Complainte sur la Bataille de Poitiers," Bibliotheque de
I'Ecole des chartres 12, no.2 (1852): 257-63.

26
particularly preoccupied with the ethos and manners of knighthood was Geoffroi dc

Charny (1300-1356)." Another knightly parvenu, Charny became a member of the

King's Privy Council and was the bearer of the oriflamme de France at the Battle of

Poitiers, where he was to die. Around 1350, Charny wrote a treatise on the proper life of

a man-at-arms. His Livre de chivalerie has proven an invaluable source for the study of

the chivalric ethos in the fourteenth-century and of contemporary views on war, love, and

piety. 12 Charny exalts the nobility of the knight's love for his lady and for God, but these

views do not fundamentally differentiate his Livre from earlier didactic handbooks on

chivalry. However, he departs from previous texts in the general tone of his treatise, as

well as with a more liberal, inclusive view of what it means to be a knight, including the

different avenues offered a paladin. More generally, Charny suggests a different kind of

celebration of the metier des armes: as a means of service to both kingdom and self.

Indeed, these distinguishing features of Charny's text are evident from his

introductory paragraph:

Pour ce qu'il m'est venu en memoire de parler de plusieurs estas de gens d'armes
qui ont este pie^a et encores sont, en voeil je un petit retraire et faire aucune
mencion briefment. Et bien en peut on parler, car toutes telz choses sont assez

11 Major discussions of the ideas and life of Geoffroi de Charny can be found in the
introduction to the text by R. W. Kaeuper, The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charny :
Text, Context, and Translation, eds. Richard W. Kaeuper and Elspeth Kennedy
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 3-66. Also consult, Philippe
Contamine, "Geoffroy de Charny (debut du XlVe siecle-1356, 'Le plus prudhomme et le
plus vaillant de tous les autres,"' in Histoire et societe: Melanges Georges Duhy, Le
tenancier, le fidele et le citoyen (Aix-en-Provence: Universite de Provence, 1992), II:
107-21.

12For example, Rosalind Brown makes extensive use of Charny to elucidate conceptions
of gender in late medival romance. See her French Romance of the Later Middle Ages:
Gender, Morality, and Desire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), chapter 1.

27
 honorables, combien que les unes le soient assez, et les autres plus, ct ades en
plus, jusques au meilleur. 13

Despite many knightly prescriptions, Charny's text does not contain an inflexible

ideology of chivalry. Instead, he recognizes many ways to be a knight, albeit some better

than others. The popular Livre de I'ordre de chevalerie, written in Catalan around 1280

by the Spanish philosopher and polymath Raymond Llull (1232-1315) and soon

translated into French, provides a counterexample in its uncompromising view of what

constitutes a knight. 14 The beginning of the treatise is rigid idealism couched in cclcstial

terms:

A la loenge et a la gloire de la pourveance divine, Dieu, qui est sire ct roy

souverain par dessus toutes choses celestes et terrestres, nous commencons cest
livre de 1'Ordre de Chevalerie pour demonstrer que, a la significance de Dieu le
prince tout puissant qui seigneurist sur les .VIJ. pianettes, et les sept pianettes, qui
sont cours celestiaulx, ont povoir et seigneurie en gouverner et ordonner les corps
terrestres, que aussy doivent les roys et les princes avoir puissance et seigneurie
sur les chevaliers, et les chevaliers, par similitude, doivent avoir povoir et
dominacion dessus le menu peuple. 15

Of course, Charny is not suggesting this divine arrangement be altered, or that the duties

of the knight are not predicated on divine order. Yet Charny finds honor in ali walks of

chivalric life, contrary to Llull. He demonstrates an enthusiasm and respect for aventures

as a genre of activity and shows a lack of emphasis on the genealogy of the gens d'armes.

Furthermore, he displays an appreciation and understanding of all walks of martial life,

13 Charny, Livre, 84.

14For more on Llull, see the Introduction to Selected Works of Ramon Llull, ed. and trans.
Anthony Bonner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 3-52. Richard W.
Kaueper discusses Charny and Llull side by side in the context of the need for chivalric
renewal felt by both writers. See his Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999), 275-288.

15Ramon Llull, Livre de I'ordre de chevalerie, ed. Vincenzo Minervini (Bari: Adriatica,
1972), 73-4.

28
even amongst those "qui, par pluseurs neccesitez qui ne font a ramentevoir, se partent de

leur pais, ou pour profit qu'il y pensent a avoir plus grant qu'il n'avroient ou pourroient

avoir en leur pays mesmes," or, in other words, those who sell their swords." 1 Contrary

to Llull, Charny admits the possible economic and social necessity of diverging from the

ideal. However, he does insist that one should return to it if possible, repeating as a

leitmotiv, qui plus fait, miex vault. This pragmatic view of the business of the man-at-

arms helps us understand the career of a man like Bertrand du Guesclin, as well as the

evolution of many later epic heroes. Charny's acceptance of the vicissitudes of knightly

life indicates a social space characterized by the ideological flexibility necessary for a

glory-seeking outcast like Bertrand to evolve into a model of chivalry, despite humble

origins or prideful character. For if Bertrand's initial desire to participate in tournaments

arises out of a quest for glory and a wish to transcend the poverty in which his father's

disdain has placed him, his early individual successes quickly lead to his service for the

kingdom.

Neither Charny in his treatise nor Cuvelier in his poem attach much importance to

the genealogy of the knights they discuss. Indeed, Cuvelier makes very little of the

lineage of Bertrand. He prefers instead to emphasize the acrimony that separated his hero

from his family during his childhood and adolescence. This heightens the greatness of

Bertrand's early achievements; they occur despite the position of familial estrangement in

which he is confined. Thus, both authors present a (slightly) more meritocratic notion of

knighthood. Of course, Charny does not advocate, nor does Cuvelier argue, that

everyone and anyone can become a great knight and attain riches regardless of

16 Charny, Livre, 92

29
background and origins. Fourteenth-century France is not the American frontier.

Bertrand, though poor, was still the son of a nobleman; a mere peasant does not climb the

social ladder to become Constable of France. That being said, both texts unmistakably

move familial background aside to highlight individual valor and personal merit as the

condition for social achievement. As Richard W. Kaeuper notes, "Geoffroi de Charny

heaped praise - and urged greater valour - upon all those who lived by the profession of

arms, not on the nobles alone." 17 This tendency, seen in light of Charny's lack of

emphasis on the mythical origins of chivalry as a gift from God in days of yore to

reestablish peace on earth, reveals that, for Charny, the immortal and important metier

des armes was not a static institution. Through dedication to the precepts of chivalry, one

could live an honorable life and preserve the community (in this ease, France) from chaos

(the English).

The story of Bertrand du Guesclin, written a few decades after Charny's

meditation on chivalry, provides a perfect illustration of the simple precepts of duty

developed by Charny and of his general perspective on chivalry. Bertrand represents the

triumph of valor over constraints of social background, and his achievement gave France

one of its greatest heroes during the Hundred Years War. Charny's perspective on

chivalry is an idealized realism: a version of chivalry set firmly in a world that, however

corrupt, can be restored through virtue, courage and duty. All are themes that run

through the chanson de geste, and all become the pillars upon which the late epic is built.

17 See Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence, 308.

30
Growing Away from Home

Bertrand's military prowess and deeds in the service of the French cause are the

obvious reasons for his popularity and for the honor given to him in the form of a heroic

biography. Beyond these simple facts, however, one must admit that his is a good story

that was made to fit, neatly or not, into pre-existing narrative categories. Many facets of

the poem recall elements described in Otto Rank's classic study The Myth of the Birth of

the Hew. the conflict with the father, the overcoming of initial hardships followed by

displays of courage and trials by battle that leave no doubt as to the subject's heroic

nature. 18 Thus, Cuvelier mythologizes Bertrand in different ways, including the use of

the epic genre. As Dominique Boutet says of Cuvelier's strategy, the chanson cle geste

"permet, grace au systeme referentiel dans lequel elle fait signe, de mieux glorifier un

heros national contemporain, de l'identifier a ses illustres predecesseurs." 19 Through his

glorification of one man's "rags-to-riches" story, we find the celebration of deeds and

courage as sufficient to insure a man's place in the world. The play of contrasts between

Bertrand's initial social and financial circumstances (as well as his physical appcarance)

and the renown he achieves all work toward emphasizing personal merit.

Of course, while the supremacy of individual achievement is presented forcefully

in Cuvelier's poem, the epic tradition had always placed courage above all other virtues,

with the possible exception of faith. It could be said (and it is a truism) that the very aim

lxOtto Rank, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero : A Psychological Exploration of Myth
(1922), trans. Gregory C Richter and E James Lieberman (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2004), chapters 1 and 2.

19Dominique Boutet, La Chanson de geste. Forme et signification d'une ecriture epique

au Moyen Age (Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 1993), 220.

31
of a chanson de geste is to glorify martial virtues. But the "biographic complete du

heros" allows for an expansion on that theme. Instead of having a pre-formed hero

already established in a social position (Roland, Olivier, Renaut, etc.), we have the

opportunity to see how social promotion is achieved through military virtues in spite of

prejudicial initial circumstances. As such, Cuvelier is in direct dialogue with the

fourteenth-century epic corpus, in which the obstacles to social advancement become a

recurring theme. The manifestation of this belief, what I shall term a "pseudo-discourse

on man," is what I intend to explore in order to demonstrate how many of late epic poems

in which the hero's early struggles against his circumstances figure prominently are

underpinned by a comforting fantasy of social advancement. An exploration of this topos

will thus help us to understand the involving notions of heroism in the fourteenth century

epic, specifically as it relates to who can become a hero, and how.

In order to arrive at a definition of what affords one the opportunities to become a

hero (or what prevents the protagonist from becoming one), a specific narrative structure

is needed. The young man who is to be a hero cannot already be part of a social system

that recognizes his future merits and potentials - in such a case, the struggle to enter the

world of heroism is precluded. As almost all late epic poems represent the trials and

tribulations of great aristocratic families from the Merovingian and Carolingian eras, a

separation must occur between the younger and older generations. Without this

separation, the children could not be confronted (at least not quite yet) with a world

20Idem. There is, of course, a discernable generic tension in Cuvelier's work between the
chanson de geste and the biographie chevaleresque that became so popular in the later
Middle Ages (e.g., Les faits du marechal Boucicaut). See the introduction and first
chapter of Elisabeth Gaucher, La biographie chevaleresque: typologie d'un genre (Xllle-
XVe siecle) (Paris: Honore Champion, 1994).

32
hostile to their ambitions. The separation thus creates a set of conflicts and difficulties

that need to be overcome for the children to become great lords in their own right. Only

after this has been achieved can they reunite with their parents and receive their rightful

inheritance. This basic plot structure, that of the enfances of the hero (such as found in

Lion de Bourges, Tristan de Nanteuil, La Belle Helene de Constantinople, Dieudonne de

Hongrie, Theseus de Cologne, etc.) "est pour ainsi dire appele par celui de la famille

dispersee" as Alban Georges has stated. 21 These two connected motifs, the enfance and

the dispersed family, are found in many twelfth- and thirteenth-century chansons de geste

(e.g., the Enfances Vivien, the second part of Raoul de Cambrai) and romances."

One of the most popular Old French versions of the motif is found in the

numerous lives of St. Eustache that circulate from the twelfth-century onward.' 3 In these

hagiographical texts, a Roman grandee named Placidas converts to Christianity during a

hunt, following his encounter with a stag that turns out to be Christ himself. Changing

his name to Eustache, the newly converted soldier, accompanied by his wife and children,

abandons his worldly riches. He is then tested in Job-like fashion by successively losses:

first his wife and then his sons, who are snatched by animals and raised by villagers.

They are later reunited with their father when the villagers elect them to join the army

now commanded by their father who had resumed military service out of duty to the

21Alban Georges, Tristan de Nanteuil: Ecriture et imaginaire epiques au XIV siecle

(Paris: Honore Champion, 2006), 442.

22For more on the "dispersed family" and its occurrence in other traditions, see Claude
Bremond, "La famille separee," Communications 39 (1984): 5-45.

23One of the best written and longest vernacular versions of the legend is from the
thirteenth century. See La Vie de saint Eustache : Poeme frangais du XIIt siecle, ed.
Holger Petersen (Paris : Librairie Ancienne Honore Champion, 1928).

33
Emperor. The story of St. Eustache also serves as a compositional paradigm for the mid-

twelfth-century poem Guillaume d'Angleterre, sometimes attributed to Chretien de

Troyes. In this text, Guillaume of England leaves his kingdom with his pregnant wife in

an expiatory journey imposed by God. Shortly thereafter, Guillaume's wife gives birth to

twins in the forest, but she is kidnapped, and thieves and wild animals seize the two sons.

The sons are raised by commoners; their father becomes a merchant, his wife the spouse

of a lord, before all are reunited after many years. 24

Both of these texts emphasize the sufferings undergone by the fathers (although

Guillaume leaves space for the struggle of the sons against their villain families). While

the poems we will study are clearly reusing motifs present in these two texts, the epic

trouveres put a much greater emphasis on the stories of youths who are separated from

their families by enemies, thieves, or animals. Thus, there is a shift away from the adult

and paternal sorrows (Eustache, Guillaume, and their spiritual progression) toward the

objects of that sorrow, the young men themselves. Rather than witnessing the "re­

education" of grown men, we see young men struggling against the social milieu in

which they are raised, and which stands in the way of their following dreams of the

chivalric life. We cannot therefore let the obvious folkloric or archetypal components of

these narrative structure of our poems blind us to the specific ways in which they are put

to use. 25 Georges has argued that "generalement, les trouveres exploitent cette periode de

24 For a comparison of the Vie de saint Eustache and Guillaume d'Angleterre and the
significant difference in tone between the two, see Isabelle Garreau, "Eustache et
Guillaume ou les mutations litteraires d'une vie et d'un roman," Medievale 35, no. 17
(Autumn 1998): 105-123.

25
A latent element in all these texts is, of course, Freud's "Family Romance." Donald
Maddox discusses its importance in relation to medieval texts, including La vie de saint

34
latcnce [the separation] qui peut presenter une image nouvelle du heros." 26 As we shall

see, this "image nouvelle" is greatly shaped by questions about the social constraints and

injustices which would keep a young man in his "proper place." This verbalization,

almost absent in earlier treatments of the motif, comes to play a significant, almost

topical, role in the enfances of late epic heroes. These hardships frame their self-

discoveries, and are the conduit through which attempts to frame a social discourse are

channeled.

As our poems always narrate the initial story of separation, the audience never

doubts that the heroes they encounter first as newborns, then as children and adolescents,

are the scions of great families. Contrary to its nineteenth-century progeny, the great

popular novel, the late epic has no dramatic revelations. By their births, it would appear,

all of the lost children are destined for great things. And if knowledge of the heroes'

ancestries was not enough, many epic protagonists are also visited at birth by faeries who

give them courage, near invincibility, and usually predict their future greatness. Such is

the case, for example, in Lion de Bourge and Galien le restore, as well as in the late

thirteenth-century Enfances Renter. In addition, most of our heroes are also blessed with

a birthmark, the croix vermeille, a telltale sign of the child's eventual ascension to great

lordship. No ordinary birthmark, "[e]lle est la 'crois roial' preuve d'un sang issu dcs rois,

gage certain de l'avenir auquel le trone est promis," in the words of the historian Marc

-j
Bloch.' For all of its symbolic import, however, the red cross gracing the shoulder of so

Eustache, in his Fictions of Identity in Medieval France (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2000), chapter 5.

26 Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 443.

35
many stolen boys serves a basic narrative function, that of facilitating the recognition and

the reunion of the family, in the same way that a rich piece of cloth in which the child
•> s

was wrapped might and does."

Moreover, for all its proleptic and programmatic import, the true signification of

the croix vermeille remains unknown to those characters blessed with it. They see it as

an indication that they are destined to be noble, but rarely as a confirmation that they arc

of a higher parentage than that given to them. Small difference, it could be argued, but it

is one that provides a rich avenue for the exploration of how the hero wrestles with his

social situation. Thus, in Florent et Octavien we find the young Florent, the Roman

emperor's son who has been raised by the Parisian butcher Clement, desirous to leave the

butcher's shop life behind him. He initially attempts to follow in his adopted father's

footsteps, but the sight of knights in armor, in a typical scene reminiscent of Perceval,

ignites his interest in a military existence. His naivete when it comes to chivalric matters

become apparent in a few humorous scenes. In one, he sells numerous oxen to buy a bird

(an aristocratic gesture). 29 These purchases create conflict within his family and, after a

final argument with them, Florent finally declares:

27Marc Bloch, Les rois thaumaturges : etude sur le caractere surnaturel attribue a la
puissance royale particulierement en France et en Angleterre (Paris : Gallimard, 1983),
247. See also Ferdinand Lot, "La croix des royaux en France," Romania 20 (1891): 278-
281.

2S A well-known occurrence of this takes place in the lai du Fresnes of Marie de France.

29This is also a stock scene of the "dispersed family" story. See Georges, Ecriture et
imaginaire epiques, 472-75. The young man selling his peasant or bourgeois father's
belongings in order to buy weapons, horses, or birds of prey is found in many of our texts
as well as in a number of older poems (Guillaume d'Angleterre, but also the thirteenth-
century Hervis de Mes). The fact that they are often fooled by the seller and overpay for
inferior merchandise is also typical. While related to the idea that their aristocratic nature

36
 Achetez moy, beau pere, ung cheval de Hongrie
Et me faittes vestir d'une cotte jolie,
S'iray server ung prince en estrange partie,
Dont je pourray monter en grande seignourie,
S'en sera honoree toute vostre lignee.
Un clerc me dit l'autrier, qui moult sot d'estudie,
Que la croix sus l'espaulle que j'ay signiffie
Que ung reaulme ayray encore en ma baillie. 30

In this young hero's self-fashioning, the cross does not affirm the past, but predicts the

future. In his justification for leaving his bourgeois home, the young Florent does not

antagonistically reject his family; instead, he expresses the desire to elevate himself as

well as them. Of course, the audience never forgets Florent's nobility. As the poet

reminds us, his refusal to espouse a merchant's lifestyle is partly because his nature "le

traioit [...] en son encesserie" (v. 1,501). 31 The sentiments proclaimed by Florent - that

of his birthmark as a warrantor of greatness to come, not of great lineage - opens up a

discursive space in which the possibility of social advancement, for himself and his

bourgeois lignee, is established. The audience's knowledge of Florent's royal descent

gives this discourse an ironic coloring that dilutes its ideological impact. Yet, as we shall

see, such ideas almost becomes a leitmotiv in, and subtext underlying, most fourteenth-

makes them unable to drive a hard mercantile bargain, it also partakes in the nicete of
characters who know nothing of the world around them. Perceval is, of course, the
archetype of the nice in Old French literature. For more, see Philippe Menard, "Le theme
comique du nice dans la chanson de geste et le roman arthurien," Boletin de la Real
Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona XXXI (1961): 77-93.

30Florent et Octavien: chanson de geste du XIV' siecle, 2 vols., ed. Noelle Labordcrie
(Paris : Honore Champion, 1991), 1: vv. 1481-88.

31For a similar sentiment, see also Lion de Bourges : poeme epique du XIV1' siecle, 2
vols., eds. William W. Kibler, Jean-Louis G. Picherit and Thelma S. Fenster (Geneva :
Librairie Droz, 1980), 2: vv. 24,145-49.

37
century epic narratives of enfances. Otherwise easily brushed aside, its recurrence points

toward an importance beyond that of a humorous or rhetorical gesture.

The coupling of this prominent motif with the unveiling of the hero's true origins

undermines any explicit threat to the aristocracy by meritocracy. Yet it also points to a

great tension in fourteenth-century knightly culture: there is a wish that legitimacy be

based on more than mere genealogy. This is not to say that the tautology is new: a man is

courageous because he is noble; he is noble because he is of a worthy family; the family

is worthy because it has been composed of worthy men, ad infinitatem. However, this

circularity is dramatized and problematized. Over and over, the late chanson de geste

trouveres underscore the conflict faced by young heroes in negotiating their worldly

aspirations with their social or economic positions.

This phenomenon was already visible in the preceding example from Florent et

Octavien. The mid-fourteenth-century Lion de Bourges offers an expanded version of the

topic. The poem beings with the exile of Duke Herpin de Bourges and his wife Alais

from the court of Charlemagne following the false accusations of traitors - a typical

device of the late chanson de geste found in many earlier poems such as Aiol or Huon de

Bordeaux. 11 Alais, pregnant at the time of banishment, gives birth in the forest of

Lombardy. While Herpin is away seeking a midwife, she is kidnapped by a band of

thieves and her newborn is left alone in the forest. The baby is then snatched away by a

passing lion that nourishes him until he is discovered by Baudouin de Montclin, who

n Both Aiol and Huon de Bordeaux provide significant intertextual (or at the very least,
important precedents) to the fourteenth-century epic. Indeed, Aiol can be considered the
wr-textual instance of the epic quest of the young man to recover his fief in the chanson
de geste. Sarah Kay has also noted the importance of this poem for the development of
the epic genre. See her The Chansons de Geste in the Age of Romance : Political
Fictions (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1995), 105-15.

38
names him in honor of the animal and raises him as his son. 33 Baudouin is a small

landholder and he provides Lion with an education in both letters and weapons. Lion

displays a taste and a talent for love and jousting, and he indulges in both until he

bankrupts his adoptive father and must abandon that lifestyle. After accusing Baudouin

of withholding money from him, Lion sullenly accepts his fate. One day, however, he

hears that a great tournament is to be held in Sicily at which the hand of Florantine,

daughter of the king, and the kingdom itself are to be the prize. 34 Lion falls desperately

in love at the mere rumor of the princess's name and is seized by the desire to possess the

maiden, as well as the kingdom. His position as an impoverished squire, however, stands

in the way of his ambition:

Laisse, pour quoy di ge sou? Je panse follement!

Filz sus d'un petit homme et de povre errement;
Maingier nous covient soille per faulte de froment,
Et boire a brassin a guise de pyement;
Et je panse avenir a teilt mariement
Qu'a la fille d'un roy tenant grant tennement;
C'est follement cudier et oultrageusement! (vv. 1,168-74)

33The lion is, of course, a lioness since the beast nurses the baby. The poet takes a
definite pleasure in informing the reader of this fact and in explaining his misnaming,
"Signour, ycy lion dont fais devision, / Elle estoit lionnesse, maix lion l'appell'on / Pour
ceu que muelx a rime nous vien en chanson" (1: vv. 586-88).

34 Despite the prominence of Sicily in the affairs of the French Crown, it would be
difficult to make the argument that the island is used in a historically aware way in the
poem. Neither Norman nor Angevin, Sicily is another of those "elsewhere" locales that
make up the epic geography. The motif of the tournament held for a kingdom and a
princess is old, and we shall return to it. Its significance in medieval narrative from
Chretien de Troyes to Tristan de Nanteuil has been analyzed by Jean-Louis Picherit in his
"Le motif du tournoi dont le prix est la main d'une riche et noble heritiere," Romance
Quarterly 36, no.2 (1989): 141-52. The matter of tournament in romance has been
treated exhaustively in Marie-Luce Chenerie, Le chevalier errant dans les romans
arthuriens en vers des XIF' et XIIt' siecles (Geneva: Librarie Droz, 1986).

39
Lion's self-doubts are directly predicated upon his place in the social ladder. As a

pauper, how can he possibly aspire to greatness? We should also note the pathetic

realism used to describe Lion's predicament: the poverty, the absence of satisfying food,

etc. The poetics of lack underscores Lion's revolt against economic factors dramatized

by the near-starvation to which he and his father are reduced.

Despite a clear assessment of his situation (perhaps because of it), Lion, like all

upstarts, refuses to be subdued by his circumstances. He proclaims his firm conviction

that poverty and a lack of illustrious ancestry should not disqualify him from seeking the

hand of a princess:

Pues dit a 1'autre mot: "11 y yrait autrement;

Avanturer m'y vuelz et faire esprouvement,
Car s'eur et fortune et Dieu premierement
Me volloient aidier a ceu tornoiement,
Bien poroit advenir per fait de hardement,
Que j'aroie la belle pour cui mez cuer s'esprant. (vv. 1,181-85)

The "deeds make the man" (with the help of God): this theme is not new. But it is also

not advanced as a banal exhortation or trite commonplace. The Lion de Bourges poet

carefully situates it within a monologue in which the rules preventing Lion from entering

the tournament are juxtaposed with a refusal to bow to these very same rules, creating a

coherent and cogent perspective on the theme, even suggesting an implicit social

message.

Jean-Pierre Picherit has noted that "le tournoi matrimonial ne semble pas avoir etc

une pratique courante de la realite medievale" but that "il apparait, en tant que motif

litteraire, sous des formes tres developpees et varices [,..]." 35 Picherit sets up a contrast

between the thirteenth-century romance Richars li biaus and Lion de Bourges with

15 Picherit, "Le motif," 141.

40
rcspcct to the valence and meaning of this motif. According to Picherit, despite many

similarities between the two texts, "comme par exemple la situation financiere des heros,

1'attitude des aubergistes qui les refmaloivent avant le tournoi, ou l'intervcntion d'un

Blanc Chevalier envoye par Dieu, l'esprit et le comportement des protagonistes des deux

oeuvres se distinguent nettement." 36 For the critic (also one of the text's editors), the

major difference between the two works is in the reification of its characters: while

Richars is a perfect model of virtue in all aspects of his life, Lion is a much less

exemplary character, perhaps especially with respect to women. However, I argue that

rather than seeing a cheapening of love in Lion de Bourges when compared to Richars li

biaus, we should see instead its corresponding emphasis, however discrete, on the

economic and social circumstances of the hero.

The social aspect of the poem (its admittedly diluted ideological discourse)

becomes more explicit during a confrontation between Lion and the Seneschal of

Florence. The latter comes to Baudouin's house to enlist the former's help to go tight in

the tournament of Montlusant. Lion's worth is explicitly recognized by other members of

the chivalric world. The Seneschal has no qualms about promising a higher social status

and riches to Lion in exchange for his military prowess. But while Baudouin is delighted

by the opportunity to get out of debt, Lion (whose desire for the princess and the crown

had already been stirred) is less than pleased with the offer. He angrily refuses, replying

to his father that to accept the offer would be to devalue his own courage and cheapen his

own worth:

"Pere, s'ait dit Lion a la chiere herdie,

Mervelle a i t de vous, se Dieu me benoye,

Ibid., 147.

41
 Que me vuelliez loier a teille compaingnie
Que se rien conquerroie je ne l'aroie mie!
De m'y avanturer feroie grant follie;
Aves vehut en moy si grande gloutonnie
Que pour avoir o lui a sa court mignerie
Me doi ge aller pener? Ceu ne ferai ge mie!" (vv. 1,322-29)

Although we are fully aware that Lion, as the son of duke, is correct to assert that he is as

deserving of inclusion in the tournament roster as any seneschal of Florence, Lion is not

yet privy to this felicity. He refuses subservience to another man by expressing the

position that rewards should equal deeds. This celebration of individual

accomplishments and virtues (or their possibility) through Lion's mouth goes beyond the

idea that a man should receive rewards proportionate to the actions he accomplishes -

this is after all what the Seneschal is, in a way, offering him. Rather, Lion's position is

that rewards should not be commensurate to the social position of the doer of the deeds.

Merits have to be objectively considered. Of course, in the context of a matrimonial

tournament, the princess whom Lion loves cannot be divided. And yet, this is not the

argument made by Lion: he simply refuses to adhere to a system which puts him in a

position inferior to the one he believes he deserves.

Therefore, the initial set-up in Lion de Bourges is not one in which "pure love" is

necessarily devalued when compared to a text like Richars li biaus - the poet's aim is

quite different. He de-emphasizes the romantic aspect of the tournament (though he will

reverse this position later), privileges its economic component, and thus demystifies the

topos, a depouillement that allows him to expose and expand on the monetary nature of

the endeavor. To associate the tournament with money is not new to the fourteenth

century. As the historian Georges Duby has demonstrated, tournaments were (or were

hoped to be) sources of enrichment for less fortunate men as well as a potential way to

42
climb up the social ladder; the greatest example of this, and one that may have

contributed to the delusions of many a medieval man, is Guillaume le Marechal to whom

Duby dedicated a monograph. 37 He sums up Guillaume's life thus: "Sans autre qualite

[...] que d'etre repute le meilleur chevalier du monde. Ce fut a cette excellence, a elle

seule, qu'il dut de s'elever si haut." 38 This belief is in turn expressed in the particular

sequence - abandonment or theft at birth, frustration, the quest for money and glory,

recognition, and reunification - embedded in the chanson de geste as both a fantasy and a

project.

The Chanson de Hugues Capet and the Rejection of Categories

The Chanson de Hugues Capet expresses the recurring fascination with concepts

of courage, birth, and social possibilities. The poem was probably composed a chaud

during the 1350s that saw the capture of Jean II at Poitiers, the bourgeois revolt of Paris

led by Etienne Marcel, the peasant uprising known as the Jacquerie, as well as the

continuous threat of Charles the Bad, king of Navarre, against his royal cousin, the

dauphin Charles. Purporting to recount the accession of the father of the Capetian

dynasty to the throne of France, this epic has attracted more critical attention than most

37For the later Middle Ages, Steven Muhlberger has written extensively on tournament.
See, among others, his Deeds of Arms : Formal combats in the Late Fourteenth Century
(Highland Village : The Chivalric Bookshelf, 2005).

38Georges Duby, Guillaume le Marechal: le meilleur chevalier du monde, reprinted in

Feodalite (Paris : Gallimard, 1996), 1,161.

39 The reader might have recognized echoes of Erich Koehler's famous thesis. See his
L 'aventure chevaleresque: Ideal et realite dans le roman courtois. Etudes sur la forme
des plus anciens poemes d'Arthur et du Graal, trans. Eliane Kaufhols (Paris: Gallimard,
1974)

43
other fourteenth-century poems, and with good cause 40 First, it offers insight into the

development of medieval epic as it is one of the few late poems which can be said to be a

(re)interpretation of history rather than a variation on, or expansion of, older thematic

concerns. Second, the poem is a lens through which one can view contemporary political

events. Indeed, the poem directly addresses issues of dynastic succession, referring to the

establishment of the Salic law which became a rhetorical and legal tool used by both

sides during the Hundred Years War and after. 41 Thus, the poem documents current

political issues widespread in mid-fourteenth century Paris, its probable place of

composition. 42 As we will see, however, the picture is not wholly coherent. Last, and

perhaps most importantly for our current line of inquiry, the poem integrates the

pejorative legend of the bourgeois origins of Hugh Capet.

In the poem, Hugh is the son of a destitute knight who married the beautiful

daughter of Paris's richest butcher, presumably for the money. After a misspent youth in

40In his admirable efforts to make fourteenth-century epics known to scholars and the
public, Robert Bossuat had offered a detailed compte-rendu and analysis of the poem in
two articles. See his "La Chanson de Hugues Capet," Romania 71 (1950): 450-81, and
"La legende de Hugues Captet au XIV e s.," in Melanges H. Chamard (Paris: Nizet,
1951): 29-38. Bossuat's summaries and analysis did more to restore the text to fame than
the very poor first edition by the Marquis de La Grange from 1864. Numerous articles
have followed suit. Most recently, Daisy Delogu has treated the poem's ideological
implications with respect to kingship in her Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign: The Rise of
French Vernacular Royal Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008),
chapter 2.

41Craig Taylor has stressed how the Salic law as the main argument for the illegitimacy
of the English to the French Crown only fully took force in the fifteenth century. See his
"The Salic Law and the Valois Succession to the French Crown," French History 15, no.
4(2001): 358-377.

42The issue of the birth of the Capetian dynasty is itself not a topic free from contention.
Was Hugh a usurper breaking the Carolingian line of succession, or was he the rightful
heir? For more see Gabrielle Spiegel's excellent article, "The Reditus Regni ad Stirpem
Karoli Magni: A New Look," French Historical Studies 7, no.2 (Autumn, 1971): 145-74.

44
which he squanders his money, Hugh flees his creditors and spends a few years serving

foreign princes in the Brabant, seducing every pretty maiden he encounters. Broke again,

he returns to a Paris in the midst of civil war. The last Carolingian king, Louis, has been

poisoned by the rich count Savaris. Despite his undeniable guilt, he escapes retribution

through deceit and bribery. Furthermore, he aims to be not only a regicide, but also a

usurper - he intends to make himself king by marrying Marie, the royal heiress. Her

mother, Queen Blanchefleur, with the help of the bourgeois of Paris and a small retinue

of faithful nobles, holds out and takes a stand against Savaris and his considerable army.

Hugh adds his sword to the Queen's support and distinguishes himself by personally

dispatching Savaris. His death, however, does not establish peace. Fedri, Savaris's

brother, is intent on both avenging his sibling's death and in pursuing his own royal

pretensions. Offered further opportunities to display his courage, Hugh proves to be such

a great support to the embattled throne that he is made duke of Orleans and then, through

election by the nobles and acclamations of the bourgeois, King of France.

The precise meaning of the poem's social machinations is difficult to discern,

though it is tempting to read the text as an ambiguous celebration of the bourgeoisie. 43

Scholars have argued for an interpretation of the work as valorization of the Parisian

bourgeoisie in the service of an insecure Valois monarchy, as a plea for social harmony

amongst the classes, or even as a perceptive commentary on the problems of family

43 Delogu, Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign, 62, points out that the bourgeois of Paris and
those of Orleans are described quite differently in the poem. The "democratic" thesis
was unconvincingly advanced by Joseph Fulk, more as a pet idea than as a real
exploration of the text. See his "Antipathies et sympathies democratiques dans l'cpopee
fran9aise du Moyen Age," in Melanges de philologie romane dedies a Carl Walhlund a
I'occasion du cinquantieme anniversaire de sa naissance (Slatkine Reprints: Geneva,
1972), 109-122.
loyalty over fealty to the state. 44 What is undeniable, however, is that in the middle of the

fourteenth century, in one of the most politically self-conscious and "realist" cpic poems

of the period, it was conceivable to portray the founder of the Capetian dynasty as a man

elevated through courage and sense of duty alone. This is all the more striking as the

legend of the bourgeois origins of Hugh was first used as a slur. Although it is

impossible to tell with absolute certainty, the story might originate in Dante's Purgatorio

where Ugo Ciappetta describes himself as "radice de la mala pianta" (the Capetian

dynasty) and as "figliuol [...] d'un baccaoi di Parigi." 45 An anonymous fifteenth-century

English author also exploits the legend to cast aspersions on the French (with direct

reference to the supposed Salic law):

Francorum lege ulieri regna negantur;

A summo rege contraria jura dabantur,
Sub duce carnifice Capoth lex ilia dabatur,
Ergo magnifice modo talis lex reprobatur.
Capoth carnificis Hugonis lex fuit ilia. 46

Although the tradesman origins are not used in and of themselves to attack the legitimacy

of the Capetians, the jab could hardly be clearer and the story less than flattering for the

44 Bossuat, "La chanson de Hugues Capet," 456; Albert Gier, "Hugues Capet, le poeme
de l'harmonie sociaie?," in Essor et fortune de la chanson de geste dans I'Europe et
I 'Orient latin: actes du IXe Congres de la Societe Internationale Rencesvals pour I 'etude
des epopees romanes. Padoue-Venise, 29 aout-4 septembre 1982 (Muchi: Modena,
1984). 69-75; and Delogu, Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign, 79.

45
Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, trans. Allan Mandelbaum (New
York: Bantam Classics, 1983), XX: vv. 43-44, 52.

46 Political Poems and Songs relating to English History composed during the period
from the accession of Edward III to that of Richard III, ed. Thomas Wright (London :
Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, 1859), 1:33. Also mentioned in Taylor, "The Salic
Law," 368.

46
subsequent kings of France. 47 However, as Franfois Suard has written, "le recours a la

legende d'un roi, fils de boucher, entre parfaitement [...] dans une perspective epique,

puisqu'il illustre le pouvoir absolu de la vaillance qui eclipse la naissance." 4X But this

"perspective epique" is significant not only as illustrated by the origins of Hugh, but also

as it comes to constitute a leitmotiv in a poem that unites and expounds upon almost all

of the different strands of the "rags-to-riches" fantasies of the late epic. By embracing

the slur, the Hugues Capet poet places himself in a difficult position to defend his choice,

which stimulates him to articulate his own social rhetoric.

As the son of a knight, Hugh could be considered a noble even though his mother

was of bourgeois extraction. According to the late thirteenth-century jurist Philippe de

Beaumanoir, nobility is transmitted by the father — even the son of a peasant woman and

nobleman, provided he is raised properly, can be deemed noble. 49 That being said, the

enemies of Hugh - and of the kingdom of France - use the argument of impure origins to

attack his legitimacy once he is made king. The poem thus not only traccs the accession

to kingship by a man of low birth, but also the development of the notion that birth is

paradoxically of superficial importance: that is to say, that there might very well be a

47 Renate Blumemfeld-Kosinski treats the topic of propaganda in the poem in her

"Rewriting History in the Chanson de Hugues Capet," Olifant 15, no. 1 (1990): 33-46. In
this, she partly follows Bossuat's intuition about the poem.

48Francis Suard, "Hugues Capet dans la chanson de geste du XIV e siecle," in Colloque
Hugues Capet, 987-1987. La France de I'an mil. Religion et culture autour de Van mil
(Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy, 1987), 225.

49 Philippe de Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis : texte critique publie avec une

introduction, un glossaire et une table analytique, ed. Am. Salmon (Paris : Editions A. et
J. Picard, 1970), 2, section 1451. Also quoted in Gier, "Harmonie sociale?," 73.

47
disconncct between one's ancestry and one's acts. When Queen Blanchefleur rewards

Hugh for killing Savaris by making him a knight, she declares:

"On ne me doit blamer s'en honour vous enpain:

Se de bas lynaige estez, n'y conte .1. neut d'estrain,
Vo fait et vo maintient ne sont mie villain." 50

She does not deny that the category of "villain" exists. She simply expands on the topos

that "vilainie" is a matter of behavior, not birth. The services performed by Hugh merit a

prize incommensurate with his initial social position, but commensurate with his courage.

From this point onward, Hugh's rise up the ladder will be measured according to his

accomplishments.

In a later scene, the queen considers both what Hugh has done for the crown and

his personal merits (e.g., his attractiveness, inter alia), then ponders the possibility of

marrying him. However, she remains conscious of the distance separating them and

comes close to acknowledging the arbitrariness of the distinction:

Et dist a lui mei'smez; "Se Jhesu Crist m'avoie!

Moult est Huez biaus hons et c'est proesce soie,
S'il fust de hault paraige, par tous lez sains c'on proie,
Che fust ly plus parfais que trouver saroie,
Mais il est petis hons, sy n'a de terre roie;
Je l'ains parfaitement, mais honte me castoie,
Sy que le mien penser descouvrir n'oseroie,
Mais amours a men cuer ung desirier convoie
En cez cuers en proesce si bien nage et ondoie
Que qui voldroit aller raison et droite voie,
Bien est dignez pour my com noble que je soie." (vv. 2,390-400)

We can recognize a certain dose of amorous casuistry in the Queen's monologue used to

justify her growing affection for Hugh despite his social position. However, she spends a

relatively short amount of time discussing his physical qualities, stressing the importance

50Hugues Capet: Chanson de geste du XIV' siecle, ed. Noelle Laborderie (Paris: Honore
Champion, 1997), vv. 984-86.

48
of his proesce in assessing whether he is worthy to wed her or not. 51 Love prompts the

reflection on noble standing, but raison et droite voie, both universals beyond the

Queen's particular sentiments, guide her choice.

When the Queen broaches the subject of matrimony with her daughter Marie, who

has also fallen in love with the young knight, she once more laments the social position

of their most valiant supporter, so different from their own: "S'il fust de hault linaige, ce

fust a droit parti, / Dignez fust d'estre rois, mais il n'est mie ensi" (vv. 2,319-20). 52 Thus,

not only is Hugh's personal value elevated, but the concept of the hault linaige as the sine

qua non for the highest position in the land is also, however briefly, put in question. Of

course, the fact that Hugh will become king and begin his own hault linaige undermines

that questioning. The poet does not necessarily suggest that this is to be an on-going

process. From this angle, the text can be read as a discreet retort to accusations of

illegitimacy surrounding the Capetians (and the Valois). That being said, it does not alter

the fact that raison et droite voie, the recognition of courage above birth, will ultimately

prevail. Hugh is recognized and proclaimed King of France by both the right-minded

nobles on the side of the Queen (those who hold fealty to the Crown above personal feud)

51Love is, here, a way of talking about ranks. Compare this to, for example, the sections
on love between different classes in Andreas Capellanus's Art of Courtly, trans. John Jay
Parry (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1959), 33-140, especially 44-61 for
love between men of the middle class and women of the nobility.

52A delightful scene of sexual rivalry between mother and daughter is presented by the
poem, one which is quickly resolved and creates no acrimony between the two. This is
not the case in some other chansons de geste. For a discussion of sexual competition
between women in the epic, see Kimberlee Anne Campbell, "Fighting back: a survey of
patterns of female aggressiveness in the Old French chansons de gestein Charlemagne
in the North: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference of the Societe
Rencesvals, Edinburgh,, 4 th to 1 I th August 1991, eds. Philip E. Bennet, Anne Elizabeth
Colby, and Graham A. Runnals (Edinburgh: Societe Rencesvals, 1993), 241-252.

49
as well as the Parisian bourgeoisie. This occurs not as a result of either Blanchefleur's or

Marie's love for him, but as the "natural" consequence of his valor. Although embodied

in one man only, meritocracy is on the move.

While some are keen to disregard his origins, Hugh, as Suard points out, never

renounces or denies them. 53 Even when he becomes a duke, and then king, he docs not

whitewash his ancestry. It is left to other characters, even those supporting the Queen, to

come to terms with the fact that such a man (i.e., one with bourgeois blood) can display

valor equal to those of higher ranks. The most faithful ally of the Queen, the count

Dammartin, Constable of France, provides a particularly didactic moment in the poem.

When the armies of Savaris's brother Fedri assemble in front of Paris, the Constable calls

upon all those loyal to the throne to fight. He, however, quickly dismisses the Queen's

bourgeois supporters as incapable of fighting in the open field. But Hugh points out to

him that friends should not dismiss friends, and that "[s]e nous sommez preudomme, ung

de nous vaura .C." (v. 1,234). When, during the battle, Hugh saves the Constable's life

twice and gently goads him about his prejudices concerning the bourgeoisie's ability to

hold its own in a war, the latter is still unable to acknowledge completely that Hugh is

one such bourgeois:

Puis a dit a Huon: "Frans vassaus postal's,

Ne say c'estez bourgois, du cuer estez gentils

53 Suard, "Hugues Capet," 220-21. Hugues Capet could also be interestingly compared
to the thirteenth-century Hervis de Mes in which the main protagonist, also the father of
the Loherain epic family, is the son of the daughter of a duke and of the provost of the
city. The opposition between his two "natures" plays heavily in the poem, the bourgeois
side being the loser. For more on the social interplay of this earlier poem, see Catherine
M. Jones, The Noble Merchant: Problems of Genre and Lineage in Hervis de Mes
(Chapel Hill: North Carolina Studies in Romance Languages and Literatures, 1993),
especially 52-86. Jones also notes that the character Anthiaume in Aiol is the son of a
woman aristocrat and of a usurer.

50
 Et de tous combatans estez superlatis,
Wy ne vy vo pareil, si m'ai't Jhesu Crist,
Mais poins ne vous cognois, ne say s'onquez vous vis
For que(z) en ceste bataille, et se de vous mesdis,
Pardon vous en require, car j'aroie mespris,
Miens en seroit ly blamez, mais point n'en vauriez pis." (vv. 1,350-57)

Contrary to what the Constable says, they had met before, and he had been remonstrated

by Hugh about the bourgeois's potential as combatants. Hugh's social status lies at the

heart of the Constable's failure to recollect their first meeting. A mere bourgeois in the

eyes of the Constable, Hugh was not deserving of being differentiated from the crowds of

non-nobles. The count Dammartin recognizes Hugh as an individual only after the latter

has shown valor in saving him. This recognition, however, is not born purely out of

gratitude, but because the Constable now perceives Hugh as a cuer gentils. Thus, Hugh

can join the category of men whom he can address - knights and heroes in the service of

the Crown - on account of their deeds. Still, he resists admitting that Hugh is in fact a

bourgeois. Claiming ignorance of Hugh's social standing (Ne say c 'estez bourgeois), the

Constable implicitly offers Hugh the chance to claim that he is not of lower extraction,

thus reinforcing categorical distinctions.

Our hybrid hero, however, will not let the ambiguity stand. When he reveals his

identity to the Constable, he fully assumes his background. In fact, he takes advantage of

the occasion to discourse on the nobility of the soul and the error of taking external

appearance as an indicator's of inner worth.

Lors ly dist: "Gentis sirez, par Dieu qui tout avoie,

Bourgois sui de Paris, pour coy en mentiroie?
Et gentillesse oussi n'est drois que je renoie,
Et s'ay bon cuer en my con povrez que je soie
Aussi bien comme ung rois vestu d'or ou de soie,
Et ly cuers fait boin euvre a qui volloirs s'apoie." (vv. 1,360-65)

51
Hugh presents his gentillesse as coexisting seamlessly with his origins, needing to be

neither overcome nor eliminated. Moreover, in the poem Hugh never uses his nobility as

an explanation for his gentillesse, nor does he privilege his father's lineage to downplay

the maternal line. He refuses to admit the legitimacy of these categories imposed by

others, as evidenced by his rejection of the Constable's fantasy of doubt concerning his

lineage. As Grier puts it, "II ne faut pas mepriser ceux qui ne sont pas nes nobles: voila

la le9on que Hugues apprend au comte de Danmartin, connetable de la reine, qui avait

meprise les bourgeois, incapables, selon lui, de vaincre une bataille." 54 Refusing the

dichotomy noble/villain where moral and martial differentiations are concerned, the

Hugues Capet poet extends the traditional topos (present in other late chansons de geste)

of the nobility of the soul. In the poem, the stalwart denigrators of this topos are Hugh's

(and the Crown's) enemies. "Only Hugh's enemies continue to focus on the literal aspect

of his nickname [butcher], attributing to Hugh the trade of butcher in an attempt to

demean him and to deny his status as king," as Delogu demonstrates. 55 This opposition

allows for the repeated disproving of their prejudicial assumptions about the "nature" of

butchers, and for the rhetorical glorification of Hugh, and of the bourgeois in general.

In declining to dissociate his gentillesse from his bourgeois background, Hugh

evokes the commonplace of the noblesse de coeur or of the soul, perhaps most notably

articulated in Jean de Meun's section of the Roman de la rose:

Noblece vient de bon courage,

Car gentillece de lignage
N'est pas gentillece qui vaille

54 Grier, "Harmonie sociale," 72.

55 Delogu, Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign, 77.

52
 Pour quei bonte de eueur i faille. 56

The topos appears and reappears in medieval texts both Latin and the vernacular, such as

Boethius, Renart Nouvel, etc. 57 Such frequency and apparent banality, however, are no

cause for dismissal. As Curtius points out, "the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries gave

new life to a commonplace which was more than fifteen hundred years old." 5X But this

topos is used in the chanson de geste in a specifically heroic perspective. Jean de Meun

describes the nobility inherent to each occupation - laborers, knights, and especially

clerks - when it is done with "vertuz ententis" (v. 18,616). Not fully anticipating the

humanist motto that virtus vera nobilitas est, Jean de Meun nonetheless addresses the

issue of nobility in all occupations and stations.

Epic poets, on the other hand, appear to be traditionally much more conservative

and recycle the topos to justify a character's desire to join the ranks of chivalry.

Gentillesse is a universal, though certainly not present in all, but it remains a virtue

associated with the aristocracy (and to those who come to be part of it because they do

happen to possess gentillesse). We find another example in the fourteenth-century epic,

Baudouin de Sebourc. In this poem, the eponymous hero, the son of the king of

Nijmegen who believes that he is a vilain 1 s son, wishes to fight in a tournament and

declares:

56Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Roman de la rose, ed. Ernest Langlois (Paris:
Societe des anciens textes franipais, 1914-1924), vv. 18,619-22.

57See Langlois's annotations to the quoted verses, Roman de la rose, IV: 317-19. The
topos also makes notable appearances in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, especially in the
Franklin's Tale.

5XErnst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1990), 180.

53
 Or m'i vaurai [prouver] a tous les plus vaillans:
Seje ne les assomme, je ne vaus .ij. besans,
Car j'ai .ij. poins plus durs que ne soit ai'mans.
Or me voel gros porter et ester roys passans
Et tenir com gentis, noblez et sosfissans,
Car il n'est nulz gentis, s'il n'est a bien pensans,
Car trestout venons d'Eve, nos peres fu Adans,
Si me vaurrai porter comme roys ou soudans,
Car quiconques s'abaisse et se tient com mesquans,
Diex ne trestous li mons ne le prise .ij. gans. 59

Placed in a similar situation, Lion de Bourges's son Olivier (raised as the son of cow-

herders after being kidnapped), similarly refers to the universal parents in explaining his

desire to enter a joust: "Nonpourquant androit Dieu chescun est issus / D'Adam

anthierement [...]." Yet he also adds that his father is "un home assez villain et qui est

moult bobus" (vv. 24,456-57). Baudouin, Olivier, and other epic characters of the

thirteenth and fourteenth centuries develop the topos of the noblesse de coeur, yet it

remains a category that they apply only to themselves. Olivier's adoptive father, Elis, is

explicitly excluded from any chance at gentillesse. Olivier is exceptional - gentiz despite

his peasant origins.

It is in this context that we fully grasp the originality Hugh's use of that topos and

the ways in which the Hugues Capet poet intensifies the pseudo-discourse on man

present in the late epic. While characters like Baudouin and Olivier underscore a tension

between their gentillesse and their non-noble blood, Hugh established no opposition

59 Baudotn de Sebourc, 2 vols, eds. Robert Francis Cook and Larry S. Crist (Paris:
Societe des anciens texte franfais, 2002), 1: 2,648-57. Although only Crist is listed as an
editor, the edition was actually established by both him and Robert Francis Cook, and the
absence of the later's name is an error of the printer. Their edition replaced the dated,
and bizarrely divided into "chants," edition by Boca. See Li romans Baudouin de
Sebourg, IHe roy de Jherusalem; poeme du XlVe siecle publie d'apres les manuscrits de
la Bibliotheque royale, 2 vols., ed. Louis-Napoleon Boca (Valenciennes: Imprimerie de
B. Henry, 1841).

54
whatsoever between his bourgeois genealogy and his gentillesse. They appear perfectly

compatible.

Proper Attire Required?

Despite the conservative use of this topos of the nobility of the heart in

fourteenth-century epics, its recurrence is symptomatic of a questioning of social

conventions and prejudices. That Hugues Capet is the poem in which it is most boldly

utilized does not diminish its ideological import in other poems. The dichotomy between

where one is situated in society and where one wants to be - and the difficulties raised by

this distance - finds another expression in the sartorial anxiety from which some of our

heroes suffer. A consequence of the "dispersed family" sequence and of the childhood

spent in a non-noble (and poor) environment renders the hero unable to acquire to proper

chivalric dress and equipment. 60 In turn, this often leads to the folkloric stock-scene

identified as the "hero of unpromising appearance." 61 In the Old French epic, one of the

best illustrations of this scene can be found in the twelfth-century Aiol, a poem whose

young hero leaves his father, the exiled duke of Bordeaux, to go to the Emperor's court

and recover the paternal fief. 62 As the family has been living for many years in a forest,

6(1
We should perhaps make more of a distinction between "clothing" and "equipment:"
the former is concerned with social standing as reflected in sumptuary laws, the latter is
the necessary tools for participating in a war or tournament. Both were obviously
expensive, but sumptuary legislations clearly mark who could buy and wear what;
acquiring weapons to fight evolves in a less defined setting. For an overview of
sumptuary laws in the Middle Ages, see E. Jane Burns, Courtly Love Undressed: Reading
through Clothes in Medieval French Culture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2002), 31-37.

61
Sith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia,
Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1932-36), motif L-l 12.

55
Aiol has nothing to wear but his father's old armor and nothing to mount but his father's

old horse. 63 In every town that he enters, he is ridiculed until he proves his strength and

valor, thus establishing himself through prowess. We find a similar scene in Lion de

Bourges when the young hero enters the town of Montlusant in Sicily where the

tournament mentioned above is to be held. He is wearing the battered armor of Baudouin

de Montclin and is promptly mocked by the bourgeois of the city for his unpromising

looks. The motif is also exploited in a rather crude and macabre way in Tristan de

Nanteuil. Doon, the bastard son of Gui de Nanteuil who has been raised by peasants,

arrives in a town where a tournament is taking place, but he is not properly attired. An

innkeeper mockingly asks him if he wants to joust, gives him a stake, then - turning

around - pulls down his breaches to display his behind to Doon. Furious, Doon makes

deadly use of the stake in a fashion best left unsaid. 64 Mockers and jokers beware.

Yet, the stereotypical and recurring nature of the scene does not necessarily make

its message banal. For example, we also find it in the Chanson de Bertrand du Guesclin

where the future Constable of France, entering the town where his first, fateful,

tournament is taking place, is described by the crowd as "dignes est d'estre queux pour la

souppe mengier" (v. 600) as he rides by them. The lesson against rash judgments based

on appearance could hardly be lost to the poem's audience for whom the memory and the

62Sarah Kay has shown the importance of Aiol in the development of the chanson de
geste. See her The Chanson de Geste in the Age of Romance, 107-9.

63 The popularity of the motif extends far beyond medieval literature. The opening of
Aiol in which the young hero is given weapons, advice, and a horse by his father brings to
mind many works of popular fiction, including the famous first chapter of Dumas' Les
trois mousquetaires.

64
See, Tristan de Nanteuil: chanson de geste inedite, ed. Keith Sinclair (Asscn: Van
Gorcum & Comp n.v., 1971), vv. 5,109-30.

56
destiny of the great national hero were still fresh. But it is in Lion de Bourges that the

scene affords the poet the opportunity to expand didactically on its meaning, again

expressing his preoccupation with status through the situation in which he has placed his

hero. In the confrontation with the Seneschal who is trying to enlist him to fight for him

in the tournament at Monlusant, Lion provides a refutation of the association between

clothes, courage, and social standing. Having assumed that the Seneschal was treating

him as an inferior because of his dress - though nothing of the sort was said - Lion

angrily declares:

Sire, s'ai dit Lion, vous dite villonnie;

Cudiez se mes corpz ait malvaise cotte vestie
Que je n'aie en mon cuer grande proesse fichie?
Encor est cil a naistre qui Dieu ferait aye;
Trestout li mal vestut ne se demonstrent mie,
Onn ait bien malvaix cuer deden cotte partie. (vv. 1,353-58)

The sentiment is not completely new in the chanson de geste\ we find a very similar

speech spoken by Aiol. 65 In the late twelfth-century Girart de Vienne, Girart's father also

rages about his poverty and states that "Li cuers n'est pas el vair ne el gris, / Eins est cl

ventre, la ou Deus l'a assis." 66 As in Lion's speech, the superficiality of clothing is

contrasted with the moral reality of courage in one's heart, "ou Deus l'a assis." In Lion

de Bourges, however, the operating principle of the commonplace is slightly different

than in these two earlier examples. No one denies or questions Girart de Vienne's

65
Aiol: chanson de geste publie d'apres le manuscrit unique de Paris, eds. Jacques
Normand and Gaston Raynaud (Paris: Librairie Firmin Didot et C' e , 1877), vv. 1,089-95.

66Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube, Girart de Vienne, ed. Wolfgang van Emdem (Paris: Societe
des anciens textes fran9ais, 1977), vv. 1,363-64. For more on concerns about fashion and
appearance in twelfth-century narrative poetry, particularly in Girart de Vienne, the
reader can consult Sarah-Grace Heller, Fashion in Medieval France (Woodbridge: D.S.
Brewer, 2007), especially 120-47.

57
family's right or ability to fight, or their heroic quality. Although poor, they still belong.

On the other hand, the Lion poet creates a rhetorical network in which the possibility

arises that some "negative" characters might not let Lion join in the chivalric fun because

he is wearing a "malvaise cotte."

The question raised by this scene is whether it is aspirational or self-justificatory,

a problem that is difficult to answer given the probable diversity of these poems'

audiences. 67 Is this scene meant to reassure nobles anxious about their economic decline

or does it appeal to bourgeois or peasant publics? In a discussion of sumptuary laws in

thirteenth-century France, Jane Burns write that "the motivating factor behind each of

these royal decrees is to establish clear and fixed boundaries for regulating physical

bodies so that their status can be read accurately in the surface of clothes." 68 However,

she also points out the fundamental problem of these laws in that they "reveal, despite

their intent, the degree to which social status might be, at least in part, a production

derived from luxury garments, [...] a process in which class boundaries were both

tenuously produced and easily transgressed [.,.]." 69 The sartorial concern thus runs in

two different, conflicting directions that both skirt and address the inadequacy of external

appearance to establish someone's position in the world. 70

67 See my Introduction.

68 Burns, Courtly Love Undressed, 34.

69 Idem.

70Of course, a certain tradition of thought suggests that true nobility shoudn't wear fine
clothing, and that expensive clothing is a symptom of moral decadence. For a short
summary of this view by an author who wholly agrees with it, see Pierre Kraemer-Raine,
Le luxe et les lois somptuaires au Moyen-Age (Paris: Ernest Sagot & C'\ 1920), 84-87.

58
 The principle of the misguided concordance between the outer and the inner - like

so many themes of the late epic - is expressed and developed more fully than elsewhere

in Hugues Capet. We have already seen Hugh declaring that "Et s'ay bon cuer en my

con povrez que je soie / Aussi bien comme ung rois vesty d'or ou de soie" (vv. 1363-64);

gold and silver being the sole prerogatives of the highest nobility. Another variation on

the theme occurs later on in the poem when Blanchefleur's cousin Drogon, a king from

7I
outremer coming to rescue the embattled queen, disguises himself as a pilgrim. Drogon

encounters the Constable and Hugh outside the walls of Paris and informs them that

while crossing the enemies' camp, he saw some valiant knights under attack. Instead of

listening to the intelligence so freely offered, the Constable mocks Drogon and casts

aspersions upon unwashed and dirty pilgrims in general. When the Constable and Hugh

departs, Drogon laments:

"Par me foy, dit Drogons, chilz parlers est bien voirs,

On ne prise point gent, on prise leur avoirs;
S'a ce conte parloie ung mot outre sen pois,
Tost me poroit ochire, n'en donroit une nois,
C'est pour men povre abit qui ne vault .II. tournois;
Demain ne le feroit pour tout l'or d'Arablois.
Pour ce comme paumiers me tairay cy tou[s] cois
Et demain a men tre parleray comme rois." (vv. 3,083-90)

While this speech is peppered with commonplaces about the power of money, it is most

revealing when read as a commentary on the arbitrary nature of social differences. This

example does not address explicitly the concept of the hero - Drogon is a king and is

only disguised as a pilgrim. Yet, its inclusion within the general framework of Hugues

71 Disguises come to play a prominent role in the late epic, although they were already
very much present in earlier poems. One thinks of Roland and his companions in
Fierabras or, more famously, of Guillaume in Le Charroi de Nimes. For the pilgrim
disguise, see William W. Kibler, "The Fake Pilgrim in Lion de Bourges," Romance Notes
11 (1969-70): 407-413.

59
Capet partakes of the underlying ideological discourse of the poem. Coming from all

angles, this discourse is used again and again to expand on the evils of rash judgments

based on an inadequate grid of social categorization.

The grid is not merely faulty: it is revealed to be potentially harmful. In this case,

social prejudices clearly endanger the knights from the royal party who arc under assault

by Fedri's troops. More generally, the specious categories so vigorously denounced by

late epic poets would prevent heroes from becoming who they are. Hugh would not have

become King of France, and the kingdom would have fallen under the thumb of traitors

and regicides. Lion would not accede to the kingship of Sicily and would not recover the

city of Bourges, restoring it to its former peace. Baudouin de Sebourc would not become

a great defender of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem against the Saracens if he had not

initially rejected social categorizations. The explicit rhetorical refutation of arbitrary

social rules is what allows these heroes to become who they are meant to be, and the text

to unfold.

The emphasis placed by late epic poets on the dichotomy between I'etre et le

paraitre finds many expressions, most importantly, as we have seen, in the context of the

hero of unpromising appearance. All the young men raised by peasants or bourgeois

eventually acquire the trappings of chivalry and are recognized for their valor, bringing

the correlation between inside and outside to its conclusion and closing the topic. Yet,

the recurrence of "bad" or misguided characters who put too much stock in the hero's

exterior can also be observed in a different context than the ones discussed above. In one

of the fourteenth-century remaniements of Renaut de Montauban, we discover Aymon,

the father of four brothers, using the poor dress of his sons as an excuse to dismiss them.

60
 This scene takes place at the end of the Ardennes forest episode. The four

brothers, having spent many months in miserable poverty after being forced to flee their

castle because of Charlemagne's continuous persecutions, are left thin and blackened,

wearing nothing but rags. Deciding to go seek their mother's help, they venture out of

the Ardennes with the familial castle as their destination. There, they unfortunately also

meet their father who has remained loyal to Charlemagne, choosing his fealty to his lord

over his sons. The family reunion is tense. Aymon is furious with his sons. But whereas

in the thirteenth-century version Aymon barely comments on their poor looks, in the later

poem he uses it to justify his unwelcoming reception. The thirteenth-century text reads

as follow:

"Je ne vos pris toz .iiii. vaillant .i. esperon.

Noir estes et velu ausi come gaingnon.
72
Quel guerre faites vos l'empereor Karlon?"

Aymon's mention of his sons' poor presentation is mostly an aside, another jab showing

his furious discontent. The fourteenth-century Aymon, however, greatly expands on the

topic:

"Maudist soit, dist li dus, qui si vous amena,

Ne qui en si fait point a enfant vous tenra,
Car je croy que mes corps point ne vous engenra
Ne la franche duchesse oncques ne vous pourta
Car vous fustes changie quant on vous alaita !
Se de mon sang fussies, vous ne vousissies ja
Venir en si faiit point que mon corps vous voit la ;
Or n'a il homme nul desa mer ne dela,
7^
S'il venoit en ce point que je l'ammasse ja."

7-)
" Renaut de Montauban: Edition critique du manuscript Douce, ed. Jacques Thomas
(Geneva: Droz, 1989), vv. 3,699-01.

73Renautde Montauban: Edition critique du ms. de Paris, BN, jr. 764, ed. Pierre Verelst
(Gent: Rijksuniversiteit te Gent, 1988), vv. 1,739-47.

61
Aymon channels his rage towards his sons in a fierce attack on their looks. The father

reuses the old commonplace of contrast and similarity between outer and inner being in a

way which serves post facto to delegitimize the hero. While in the earlier version Aymon

was simply disdainful of his sons' blackened faces, in the later one he declares that their

blood cannot be his. Such accusations of bastardy could be dismissed as the wild rants of

a wrathful old man seeking any means possible to cast aspersions on his sons. Yet it

further reveals the fallacy of the concern with what a proper knight should look like, and

exposes the superficiality of what is needed to be counted among a great lineage: a proper

petticoat and a bath. The extreme nature of Aymon's angry renunciation of his sons

highlights his misguidedness. The ways in which the fourteenth-century version expands

the role of appearances, and the absurdity of suggesting that the saintly Renaut might not

be who he is, serve the didactic purpose of the late epic writers. Sartorial and social

decheances notwithstanding, a hero is always a hero.

The Ennobled Sidekick

Our poems' young heroes who discuss and condemn the social categories to

which they think themselves tied and by which they risk being subjugated are - with the

notable exception of Hugh Capet - all the sons of great lords. Thus, the valence of their

discourse is always already diluted by the audience's knowledge of their true origins. It

could therefore be said that their "rise" is nothing other than a proper cosmic calibration.

The differences articulated between the young nobles and their adoptive families would

thus point toward the primacy of ancestry in defining heroism. The "dispersed family"

narrative could then be only "exploit[e] de fa^on a reveler les traits inalienable de la

62
veritable noblesse [...]" as Suard writes in an important article. 74 The questioning of

social categories woven throughout the narrative might constitute an empty rhetorical

gesture. In Boutet's and Strubel's words, echoing Duby's well-known theory of the three

orders, "Pour [l'homme medieval], les gens se repartissent en 'ordres,' selon leur

fonction theologique, ou en types (le villain, le seigneur, le marchant, le moine, la

femme), dont le comportement est fixe par avance et ne peut varier." 75 It is not my aim

to propose a complete revision of fourteenth-century mentalite, which would require

more space than is allowed here. That said, I would argue that it is a mistake to

systematically reduce the questioning of social categories in the late epic to an immutable

normative discourse.

As a further demonstration of this, it is useful to turn to a corollary of the

"dispersed family" narrative and to examine it seriously: the multiplication of interactions

between noble and non-noble characters (although we also observe this in epics where

families remain together). These interactions sometimes result in the "elevation" of these

non-nobles to a higher status. From the city-dwellers in Parise la duchesse to the

merchant in the Charroi de Nimes, the world of the chanson de geste had never been

completely void of merchants, peasants, and bourgeois. However, in most twelfth- and

thirteenth-century poems the presence of these characters remains relatively minimal.

Moreover, there are few cases of social promotion and the non-nobles mostly fulfill a

humorous function (the merchant in the Charroi de Nimes being a prime example, but

74Francis Suard, "La chanson de geste comme systeme de representation du monde," in

Actes du Xf Congres International de la Societe Rencesvals, aout 1988 published in
Memorias de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona 22 (1990), 265.

75 Boutet and Strubel, Litterature et Societe, 198.

63
also Gautier in Gaydon as William Calin has shown). 76 Suard brings attention to a

notable exception in the twelfth-century Chanson d'Aspremont. The kingdom is under

attack, and the imperial army's numbers too few. Consequently, Gerard d'Eufratc calls

upon all those able to fight, from young bacellers to musicians, and promises to elevate

all those who show courage:

Por qoi il sace proece et vaselage,

Onques ne fu acontes li parages.
Se il est sers, quites est del servage... 77

While the promise is made, the service rendered, and presumably the bacellers and

musicians made knights, they are hardly the focus of the poem and they arc never

mentioned again after this plea. This example of social promotion through deeds remains

a fundamentally collective experience, and the representatives of the lower classes remain

undifferentiated.

In an article discussing their growing presence in the late epic, Suard states that

"les non-nobles n'accedent pas au statut heroique: ils sont les auxiliaires du heros et non

les protagonistes." 78 This assessment corresponds closely to the role that they play in the

earlier Chanson d'Aspremont. In the late epic also, the bourgeois or the peasant docs not

become the subject of the poems. Their position is subservient to or dependent on the

rise and fall of the main heroes. But however correct Suard's reading is, it does not do

full justice to the important roles that non-nobles come to play in many narratives, and to

76William Calin, The Epic Quest: Studies in Four Old French Chansons de Geste
(Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1966), chapter 2 (Quest for Humor).

11La Chanson d'Aspremont, ed. L. Brandin (Paris: CFMA, 1919-20), vv. 7444-46,
quoted in Suard, "La chanson de geste", 266.

78 Suard, "L'epopee fran9aise," 453.

64
the influence that this new importance has on the didactic make-up of the poems as a

whole. Furthermore, it fails to take into account the anoblissement sometimes granted to

non-noble helpers of heroes in recognition of their service, loyalty, and general good

dispositions. Call it "trickle-down heroics." This is a familiar motif found in what could

be considered the ur-text of the "dispersed family" medieval storyline: Guillaume

d'Angleterre (along, of course, with the lives of St. Eustache). In this poem, the

merchant who protects and helps the eponymous Guillaume during his exile is ultimately

rewarded with the office of chamberlain of the royal court of England. Once again what

is striking in our poems is the recurrence of this scenario: Clement, foster-father of

Florent, is made regent of Jerusalem in Florent et Octavien\ Baudouin de Montclin is

made regent of Sicily and the cow-herder Elie is made a castellan in Lion de Bourges\ a

talented jeweler assists the hero throughout Theseus de Cologne; and the charitable

cobbler who had taken care of Baudouin de Sebourc during his illness is made king of

Bagdad. Actually, in this later poem, the cobbler nicknamed Pauvre-Pourvu by

Baudouin almost reaches heroic status in his own right. Several hundred lines recount an

adventure in which, independently of his benefactor, he captures cities and has romantic

dalliances. In this respect, he is not very different from the brothers of Baudouin whose

adventures also take place alongside his in other locations in the narrative.

The evident interest in non-noble characters in the late epic and their ascending

narrative importance is illuminated by, once again, a comparison between the two verse

versions of Renaut de Montauban. The later version amplifies the episode of the Oriental

travels of Renaut by many thousand lines. Among the many additions in these lines is

the appearance of a bourgeois named Josere to take care of Renaut in Acres while the

65
hero is afflicted with leprosy and abandoned by all others (another stock scene). Once

Renaut recovers and leaves Acres for the conquest of Jerusalem, and eventually the entire

"Middle East," Josere joins the army and becomes Renaut's standard-bearer. As such, he

participates, along with his four sons, in the combat on the same level as the other knights

fighting for the Christian cause. It is useful to remember that the only other members of

the lower classes present in the thirteenth-century Renaut are the carpenters and masons

in Cologne who, jealous of his superior building skills, kill Renaut. While this scene

takes place in the later version, it is counterbalanced by the remarkably positive portrayal

of the Acres bourgeois, both in private and on the battlefield.

All of these examples are strongly at odds with the conclusion reached by

Micheline de Combarieu in her study of the vilain in earlier chansons de gesle. For

Combarieu, the vilain is either completely absent or "il existe assez peu d'exemples

d'integrations reussies du vilain au monde chevalresque pour qu'ils n'aient qu'une portec

d'exception individuelle." 79 The vilain, the peasant, the bourgeois all play important

positive roles in the late epic, and their recurring presence as more than mere instruments,

brings "la portee d'exception individuelle" within reach. 80 The late epic trouveres are not

proposing a radical social agenda - that bears repeating - but not to see these numerous

examples of social elevations as partaking in the general questioning of who can be a

hero in the chanson de geste would be reading in bad faith. Hybridity, heterogeneity,

19Micheline de Combarieu, "Image et representation du vilain dans quelques chanson de

geste (et dans quelques autres textes medievaux)," in Exclus et systemes d'exclusion dans
la litterature et civilisation medievales (Aix-en-Provence: Edition CUER, 1978), 23, 7.

80This is not to say that there are no bad or evil representatives of the lower classes in the
chansons de geste, but that there are also many counterexamples.

66
expansion are the calling orders of the late epic trouveres, and the poor, the ill-clothed,

the bourgeois all become indexes of a new definition of heroism.

The Peculiar Case of the Bastard: Half-Way House to Glory

The pseudo-discourse on man in Lion de Bourges, Hugues Capet, and other

thirteenth- and fourteenth-century chansons de geste reveals the extent to which an

evolving concept of heroism interacts with the fundamentally conservative epic genre to

create an ambiguous and distorted picture. In addition to providing alterations to the idea

of who a hero can be, late epic poets also display an enthusiasm for a fuller and broader

spectrum of human experience: from lover to duel fighter, from crusader to mercenary,

from lowly fighting knight to king, all with vilain acolytes at their side. These later

heroes live in a fictional world in which adventures and situations multiply, a basic

compositional element of the very long late epic. But the adventures befalling these

heroes and their desire for glory and advancement are predicated on the fact that they are

the scions of princely family. The reader, ever aware of the hero's true ancestry, has no

reason to doubt that the reason the young man pursues martial fame both ardently and

successfully is because of the noble blood flowing through his veins, and its

accompanying legitimacy.

Not all characters in the chanson de geste, however, are legitimate sons. As the

late epic incorporates romantic adventures into its plot structure, the protagonists of these

poems, fathers and sons, roam the world and encounter women whom they desire and

who desire them in return. These aventures amoureuses of the late epic hero -"ainsi

apparait le heros grand seducteur" as Suard writes - engender numerous illegitimate

67
children. 81 Consequently, the bastard becomes a staple of the late epic poems. This is

not to say that there were no bastards in earlier poems. Monique Malfait-Dohet points

out that "[d]es fils illegitimes apparaissent en filigrane dans de nombreuses chansons de

X2
geste" such as Girart de Roussillon and La Bataille Loquifer. With the spectacular

exception of Bernier in Raoul de Cambrai, most of these bastards play a minor role in the

poems. This is in stark contrast to their numbers and importance in the late epic, whose

plethora of bastards made the nineteenth-century medievalist Leon Gautier exclaim with

exasperated moral and aesthetic outrage that "[i]l est certain que le batard a ete a

I'honneur aux XlVe et XVe siecles, lesquels sont vraiment les siecles de la batardise ct

du batard." 83 As 1 have stated above, Gautier had harsh views on the long and unwieldy

poems of the fourteenth century. For him, the bastard serves as a metonymy for the

general decadence of the genre as a whole. He is both the result and a symptom of

degeneration. But where Gautier saw the figure of the bastard undermining the moral

and social fabric of the epic world, I argue that this new form of hero contributed

positively to the world of the chanson de geste and to the renewal and preservation of the

genre.

Offspring and symbols of the late epic trouveres' fascination with and addiction

to adventures, bastards incarnate many of the essential changes occurring in the epic of

the fourteenth century. Perhaps contrary to what might be expected, the bastard rarely

81 Suard, "L'epopee fran^aise," 454.

82Monique Malfait-Dohet, "La fonction de la batardise dans la definition du heros epique

du Deuxieme Cycle de la Croisade," in Cinquante ans d'etudes epiques: Actes du
Colloque anniversaire de la Societe Rencesvals (Liege, 19-20 aout 2005), 68.

83 Leon Gautier, Les Epopees franqaises: etude sur les origines et I'histoire de la
litterature nationale, 2 vols (Paris: V. Palme, 1865-68), 1: 533.

68
constitutes a subject of anxiety in the late chanson de geste: he never makes claims to

inheritance, and he hardly ever threatens the established order by claiming rights to which

he is not legally entitled. This should not be a surprise to students of the chanson dc

geste, as the bastard Bernier in Raoul de Cambrai is repeatedly portrayed in a positive

light, always conscious that he is not legitimate and therefore exists outside the family.

That he upholds his biological father's lineage in its war against Raoul, and becomes his

father's eventual heir, is only a measure of his unassuming dutifulness throughout the

poem.

The bastard seeks reintegration into a lineage from which he is excluded by the

circumstances of conception and birth. I will explore the duality of the bastard's

existence - submission to a law that subjugates him and his demand for legal/patriarchal

recognition - in order to demonstrate how the bastard can be seen as the paradigmatic

hero of fourteenth-century epic. He is the emblematic convergence of impure origins and

inner virtue, who overcomes his social situation in order to become who he wants to be:

his father's son (what, to a certain extent, he has been all along). M.B. Goscilo, in her

study of the bastard in the nineteenth-century novel, judiciously writes that "bastardy is

one of the many unusual derivations by which myth designates the superlative man, one

of the precarious births which become dually the catalyst of future exploits and the badge

of exceptionalness. Paragons of bastardy include Arthur, Gawain, Siegfried, Sargon

Thelephos, and Conchobar." 84 While these elements are in some cases present in late

epic poems - the exceptional case of Galien will be examined in conclusion - they appear

in a diluted form. For late medieval poets, it seems, the mythical significance of bastardy

84
M.B. Goscilo, The Bastard Hero in the Novel (New York: Garland Publishing, 1990),
8.
(one thinks also of Hercules) has been lost, as Dominique Boutet has argued. 85 What

remains is legalese. A mythical analysis of the topic obscures the particularities of the

late trouveres' obsession with bastardy. The bastard is most importantly an example of

the changing, possibly relaxing, standards by which one is admitted into the pantheon of

heroes. Indeed, even Gautier begrudgingly concedes as much: "La verite nous oblige

d'ajouter ici qu'on demandait generalement au batard d'etre preux et vaillant pour laver

sa batardise." 86 The stories of the bastards illuminate the discourse of the possibility of

every man to live a life of glory and adventure and embody the fantasy of social

advancement which informs the late epic. Yet, this fantasy is clearly inscribed in the

well-worn shape of the chanson de geste.

The positive portrayal of the bastard in fourteenth-century epic literature stands in

sharp contrast to bastardy's considerably more miserable legal status. In this sense, the

poems offer the fantastical view that impurity of birth can be almost fully redeemed. It is

not that bastards were systematically stigmatized by society. We find many examples

throughout the Middle Ages of men who went on to political greatness despite

illegitimacy, William the Conqueror being the greatest. Born out of wedlock, he was

legitimized by his father and succeeded as the legitimate heir to the duchy of Normandy,

and obviously, became king of England. Farther back, Louis the Stammerer's sons,

Louis and Carloman, also ascended to the French throne, despite being the offspring of a

concubine. In the later Middle Ages, bastardy did not prevent John Beaufort, the natural

85Dominique Boutet, "Batardise et sexualite dans l'image litteraire de la royaute (XII 0 -

Xlir* siecles)," in Femmes-Mariages-Lignages. XIF-XIV* siecles. Melanges offerts a
Georges Duty (Bruxelles: De Boeck-Wesmanel, s.a., 1992), 57-59.

86 Gautier, Les Epopee frangaises, 1: 533.

70
son of John of Gaunt, from becoming Marquess of Somerset, and serving nobly in the

disastrous expedition to Nicopolis. 87 Likewise, Antoine, bastard of Phillip 111 of

Burgundy, was inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece and was proudly called the

Grand Bdtard, 88 Despite these glorious examples, however, one senses that bastardy was

more and more frowned upon in the later Middle Ages, at least in as far as royal

succession was concerned. Returning to Louis and Carloman, Sanford Zale has shown

how the two were progressively expunged from royal historiography beginning in the

thirteenth century so that the French Crown could claim uninterrupted legitimacy from

the Carolingians onward. 89

Likewise, bastards are afforded very little legal protection and status by the law

books and coutumiers of the period. They were pushed out rather than embraced by their

families, at least in theory. In his Coutumes de Beauvaisis, the thirteenth-century jurist

Philippe de Beaumanoir declares that the bastard is a stranger "a l'esgard des loix, et dcs

effects civils et coustumiers." 90 Bastards stood in a legal no-man's-land that precluded

them from inheriting as sons from their parents, although they could receive small

bequests and pass on what was given to them to their own children.91 The Coutumes

87
Jacques Pavot, "Noblesse et croisade a la fin du Moyen Age," Cahiers de Recherches
Medievales 13 (2006): 77.

88It has to be said that both were later legitimized; John Beaufort by the pope because of
his parents' marriage, and Antoine by the king toward the end of his life.

89
See Sanford Zale, "Bastards or Kings or Both? Louis III and Carloman in Late-
Medieval French Historiography," Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance
Studies 29, no. 1 (1998): 95-122. For legends about the supposed bastardy of
Charlemagne himself, see Boutet, "Batardise et sexualite," 60-64.

90 Philippe de Beaumanoir, Les Coutumes de Beauvaisis, 2: 301-02.

71
conveys a palpable anxiety about bastards making claims on the property of their father

to the detriment of legitimate children, the "droit oir et loiaus." Philippe de Beaumanoir

stresses the legal, moral, and religious importance for the bastard to be forthright about

his status, "et s'il s'i metent pour ce que nus ne leur debat pour ce que Ten n'en set pas la

verite, pour ce ne demeure pas qu'il ne le tiegnent a tort et contre Dieu et ou peril de leur

ames." 92 Accordingly, bastards in the late epic never try to subvert the legal prohibitions

and preclusions attached to their status, nor do they forget or lie about their origins.

Rather, they embrace the circumstances of their birth and put body and soul at the service

of the lineage to which they wish to belong, revitalizing it without endangering it.

The defining characteristic of a bastard is obviously that he is either born out of

wedlock or that his parents never married, for he could have been conceived before the

wedding and made "loiaus par la vertu du mariage." 93 In the late chansons de geste, there

are almost no cases of post-conception legitimization as the fathers are typically already

married or destined to wed someone else. 94 The coital moment is thus squarely placed

91 For more on the legal status of the bastards and on inheritance laws, see Marie-
Christine Martin, La Batardise dans les textes juridiques et les ceuvres litteraires, en
France, au Moyen-Age : aux origines du roman familial (Lille: ANRT, 1989), chapters 1
and 2 (unpublished dissertation). The reader may also consult chapter 18 of
Beaumanois's Coutumes. For an overview by a legal historian, see Laurent Chevailler,
"Observations sur le droit de batardise dans la France coutumiere du Xlle au XVe
siecle," Revue historique du droit franqais et etranger (1957): 376-411, where the author
focuses on the legal exclusion of the illegitimate child.

92 Beaumanoir, Coutumes, 2: 293.

93 Ibid., 2: 280.

94In this respect, our poems are somewhat different from other stories of bastard children
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In Richart li biaus for example, the hero,
conceived during the rape of his unconscious mother by a great lord named Louis le
Pieux, eventually "enacts" his legitimacy by enabling the marriage of his parents. The

72
under the rubric of lust and forbidden desire, creating another obstacle for the bastard to

overcome in order to become a hero. He has to contend with the history of his

conception in the eyes of others who might call him, rightfully so, a bastard and, less

kindly, a filx a putain. Both are typical insults found in the epic, but they might sting all

the more for being true. In the words of Anna Ravantos Berange, "son existence

temoigne du peche de la chair et herite de la souillure d'un contact sexuel interdit." 95

"Courtly" love is rarely invoked as the reason for the trysts of the bastards' two parents;

wc are dealing with raw physical desire or playful gallivanting. The batard de Bouillon

in the poem bearing his name is the fruit of the conscious, casuistic seduction of his

already-married father, Beaudouin, king of Jerusalem, by the not yet converted Saracen

princess Sinamonde. Girart, in Lion de Bourges, is the issue of the sexual blackmail of

Lion by Clarisse, the sister of his mortal enemy Gamier, into whose hands he had fallen.

Garpion in Tristan de Nanteuil is the offspring of a deception, almost a rape, performed

by Tristan to get into his cousin's bed, though he did not know they were related. ' 6

The thirty bastards of Baudouin de Sebourc, with the exception of the first (who is

the result of the seduction of his foster-sister), and the ten of Hugh Capet fall into a

different category. They are the fruits of a conscious display of "playful" virility by their

only example of legitimization in the late epic is that of Raymond, Tristan de Nanteuil's
and Blanchandine's child, who is made loiaus by the wedding of his parents, before his
mother's miraculous sex change.

95Anna Ravantos Berange, "L'expiation de la naissance illegitime dans Los siete infantes
de Lara and Le Batard de Bouillon," in Crimes et chatiments dans la chanson de geste,
ed. Bernard Ribemont (Paris: Klincksieck, 2008), 337.

96This is the only example of near-incestuous sex in our poems, and Tristan will pay
dearly for this mishap as he loses the protection of God until he expiates his sin. He is
furthermore killed by his bastard son who did not know that Tristan was his father.

73
fathers during their youth. Both heroes deliberately went about seducing women, almost

as a dare on their part and as a show of salacious humor by the poets. This unapologetic

exhibition of sexual prowess is well summarized by Hugh's hedonistic credo:

S'ay eii dusque(z) en cy bon tamps en desduissant

Et se plus n'en fasoie en jour de mem vivant,
S'en aray ge deduit et joie en ramembrant
Du jolly tamps que j'ay eii et nonpourquant
Je serviray amours, qui que m'en voist blamant,
Coy que saige le tiengnent a euvre folli'ant,
Car s'il y gist follie, elle est douce et plaisant,
Et qui vit en plaisance, il a assez vaillant. (vv. 290-8)

There is thus no effort made to excuse the fathers' behavior on moral grounds or to

explicitly condemn them for their philandering. The recklessness of the fathers creates a

shame for the sons and they are always sons, daughters are strangely absent in the epic

- born of these brief encounters. It also leaves the sons geographically and legally

separated from their paternal families, as the fathers rarely remain to see whether or not

there are procreative consequences. In the epic, there usually are. Protagonists of a

romance can carry on long-term affairs without inconvenient conceptions - one thinks of

the decade-long love of Lancelot and Genevieve - but this rarely occurs in the epic. 97

Epic sex is much more concerned with the materiality and physicality of the erotic

encounters than with elevated conceptions of love. It is characterized by the brief tryst

that leaves behind not sweet words or noble thoughts, but bastards. "[L]es guerriers de la

It is true, however, that Gauvain engenders many illegitimate children. It is also true
that Mordret, bastard of the incestuous relations of Arthur and his sister, will bring down
the kingdom in the Mort le roi Artu, and Galaad, son of Lancelot and of king Pelles'
daughter, recovers the Grail in the Queste del Saint Gral. However, I argue that the
Arturian tradition deals more with the mythic qualities of bastardy than with its legal and
feudal implications.

74
 9X
chanson de geste tardive se vouent rarement a une seule femme," as Georges writes.

The epic hero's promiscuity and procreativity confirms Claude Roussel's assertion that

love in the late epic "n'est qu'un rouage narrative parmi d'autres," and not the primary

concerns of the trouveres 99 In this case, the function of the "rouage" is to produce new

characters, bastard sons, or to lead to more tales, amplifying and expanding the narrative.

Unsavory conception-stories, the result of another hero's brief incursion into the world of

romance (perhaps), provide the obstacles against which the bastard epic hero, divorced

from his father's lineage, contends and by which he is measured until he proves

otherwise.

In some cases, the early life of the bastard follows a very similar pattern to that of

the legitimate child discussed above. 100 He may be abandoned or stolen from his mother

and raised by people of common stock, like Doon, son of Gui de Nanteuil and a Saracen

princess in Tristan de Nanteul. Or he may be raised at court, ignorant of who his real

father is and even of his bastardy, like Girart in Lion de Bourges or Gargion in Tristan de

Nanteuil. However, while legitimate sons are systematically separated from their parents

until able to effect, after many trials and tribulations, a full family, the late epic bastard

often lives with his mother from infancy, though kept in the dark about his origins. 101

98
Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 466.

99Claude Roussel, "D'armes et d'amour: l'aventure dans les dernieres chansons de

geste," in Le Romanesque dans I'epique, ed. Dominique Boutet (Nanterre: Centres des
sciences de la litterature, Universite Paris X-Nanterre, 2003), 176.

100 See also Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epique, 473.

101Octavien, legitimate son of the emperor of Rome and his wrongfully accused wife in
Florent et Octavien, is one of the only legitimate children in our corpus who remains with
his mother, possessing from the start a full knowledge of his genealogy.

75
Thus, the ten bastards of Hugh Capet, the thirty of Baudouin de Sebourc, those of

Baudouin de Bouillon, Lion, and Tristan are all raised by a biological mother, who plays

a significant role in the education and enculturation of the child.

This responds to both moral and narrative factors in the uncertain status of the

bastards in the Old French epic. The authors never at any point disparage the bastards'

character or associate moral flaws with their bastardy. This is an attitude that we found

much earlier: in Raoul de Cambrai, Bernier is portrayed positively; in the thirteenth-

century Parise la duchesse, Hugues, the false bastard, says,"Car, se je suis batarz, ne suis

mie mauves; / Mieuz aut .i. bons batarz que mauvais d'epose." 102 Contrary to their

legitimate counterparts, however, late epic bastards are not granted the favor of

possessing an irrefutable sign that they belong to a family, such as the croix vermeille

ubiquitously gracing the shoulders of legitimate children. And, with the notable

exception of the batard de Bouillon, none receives an explication of his birth by divine or

fantastic messengers. Even in this instance, it is Baudouin de Bouillon who is told by

Morgan that he has impregnated the Saracen princess Sinamonde, not the bastard himself.

Thus, the mother is the only link between father and bastard, a clear reminder that only

mothers are certissima m They are the only ones who can communicate or confirm the

paternity of a child, "car nus ne n'en puet mieus savoir la verite que la mere." 104 For the

bastard, though the truth is often shameful to hear, it is the only proof that cannot be

denied by the father: the scabrous story of his conception.

102Parise la duchesse: chanson de geste du XIHe siecle, 2 vols., ed. May Plouzcau (Aix-
en-Provence: Publication du CUERMA, 1986), 1: vv. 1,500-01.

103 To reuse Freud's terminology. See Maddox, Fictions of Identity, 192.

104 Beaumanoir, Coutumes, 2: 281.

76
 Girart in Lion de Bourges, provides the best illustration of this. After he is

conceived, his mother, Clarisse, marries Gauthier de Montrocher, an ally of the duke of

Calabria, who raises Girart as his son. When the army of Lion comes to besiege

Montrocher, the young Girart stands ready to fight for his adoptive father. But Clarisse,

unwilling to see her son battle his biological father, reveals his true genealogy.

Immediately, Girart rejects the bonds tying him to his mother's family - most epic

bastards eventually break with their maternal line - and aims to join the ranks of Lion's

army. He asks Clarisse how he can make himself known to Lion and, in the poem's most

comic moment, she answers with the tale of her seduction and coercion of Lion:

Biaulz filz, s'ai dit Clarisse, se Dieu me puist salvier,

Vous li poues moult bien dire et recorder
Comment per devant Rege, per lui a raviser,
Le fis mettre en ung baing et lui trez bien laver;
Et pues en ung telz lieu le volz apres mener
Ou il ait asses plux a baitre qu'a vanner ! (vv. 24,052-57)

We might have heard a full account of their only night together, had not Girart

interjected, "E la, dit li bastard, je n'en vuelz oyr plus parrler!" (v. 24,058). The only

shibboleth the bastard can give his father is one that makes him blush in shame. The

awareness of the impurity of his origins and of indignity of his birth stands in sharp

contrast to what the bastard wants to be - a hero worthy of his father's honorable lineage

- and provides the catalyst for his acts of courage. Girart acts as if a series of noble deeds

will demonstrate his "right" to belong, even before he presents himself to his genitor for

recognition. The shame and uncertainty of his birth must be counterbalanced by his

strength and heroism; he needs to wash off his conception, as Gautier would say. Actions

thus speak louder than births, and the bastard stands at the crux of a paradox: He must

earn his birthright.

77
 More than ignoble origins stand in the way of the bastard's pursuit of honor and

glory. Unmarried mothers rarely have marriage prospects in the late epic, leaving them

and their sons in a financially precarious position. The bastard has no paternal

infrastructure to help him along, no one to pass along to him an ancestral sword, armor,

or even fatherly advice. Thus, the desire to become a valiant knight, a desire shared with

legitimate counterparts, can come from distinctly economic needs. Seeking the father is a

way to escape poverty. This pragmatic motive stirs the mother of the Grand Bdtard in

Baudouin de Sebourc to urge her son to go to the rescue of his father's family. He is not

only bound by the (self-created) obligations of duty, but also by reason - it is only

through courage in the service of his father that the Grand Bdtard may earn riches in a

worthy way. His mother tells him:

Et pour che je vous di, biaus fiex, que vous vises,

Comment que vous soies povres et d'avoir mau moebles,
S'aies le coer hardi ou ja riens ne vaures.
Ressambles vostre pere, qui tant fu natures,
Qui fu li plus hardis de .xxx. roiautes
Et tout li plus gentis qui soit en .c. chites. (vv. 18,402-407)

The mothers in Hugues Capet echo this sentiment, pointing out that only by joining his

father can a son rise legitimately in the world. The mothers, once lovers of Hugh, all

deliver the same discourse to their respective sons when they hear of Hugh's elevation

from simple knight/bourgeois to Duke of Orleans. Since war is raging in France and

Hugh is a central figure, it is only natural that natural sons should seek their fortunes

under their self-made father.

Pluseur enfans avoit chilz Huez engenrez

En Hainnau, en Brabant, einsi c'oy avez,
Dont les merez disorient as enfans en secrez:
"Biaus fieulz, vous estez grans et biaus et bien fourmez,
Que n'allez a Paris qui est bonne chitez

78
 Veoir Huez vo pere qui tant c'est bien prouvez ?
Encor en poriez estre hautement honorez
Et il sera de vous aussi trez bien parez
Car vous estez biaux enfez et bien le resamblez." (vv. 2,529-38)

What could be sweeter music to a bastard's ears than to hear that is he not only of a

pleasant and strong shape, but also that he resembles his father? But under this appeal to

live up to appearances, the subtext of the mother's speech comes through: you, too, can

earn money (and glory) as your father did, notwithstanding your current social status, and

this rise in fortune can only be achieved through your father. The path to honor, glory,

and riches is fraught with obstacles for every epic hero, but the bastard's precarious legal

status (or the lack of one) and financial resources frame this road not in terms of myth,

but of money.

Historically, as has been mentioned, many bastards of noble families were

integrated in one way or another into the feudal family structure, and some fathers did

feel a measure of obligation toward their illegitimate children.105 But in the chanson de

geste, the fathers of bastards are seldom presented as owing anything to either their child

or their former lover. 106 The onus falls entirely on illegitimate sons, who must

demonstrate that they are worthy to integrate into and fit to serve the lineage in whatever

way the father chooses. Claims to heredity must be earned. While the unbridled

sexuality of the late epic has often been taken as a sign of its decadence (especially by

nineteenth-century scholars), its resulting offspring bridge the gap between the worlds of

105
Philippe Contamine, La Noblesse au royaume de France de Philippe le Bel a Louis
XII: essai de synthese (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1997), 60-1.

106In the late thirteenth-century Gaufrey, the poem's eponymous hero is forced to
abandon his bastard son conceived with a Saracen princess. He feels a pinch of regret,
which vanishes rather quickly.

79
epic and romance with a single-minded concern to assist the paternal lineage once they

learn who they are. In the world of the late epic trouveres, the bastards never presume

that they will be welcomed with open arms. They travail under the premise that

recognition must be deserved. Courage has to be realized and demonstrated as an

offering, an a priori condition, before the bastard hero is deemed worthy of laying claim

to a blood-link with his father. Whatever their nature may be, it is meaningless if not

supported by actions. Girart, Lion's son, provides a telling example. Because Lion

bested Gamier in the tournament, the family of Girart's mother, with Gamier, duke of

Calabria, at its head, is engaged in a mortal struggle with Lion for the hand of Florantine

and the throne of Sicily. Upon learning that Lion is his father, Girart immediately

undertakes a coup d'eclat which will get him noticed by Lion. Imagining their

hypothetical reunion, Girart pictures this scene where Lion delivers the following speech:

« Signour, vecy mon filz, je l'ayme parfaitement.

II m'est venus aidier quant li besoing m'en prant;
Et pues qu'il m'est venus aidier soignousement,
Je li donrai/ grant terre et riche chaissement. »
Ensi dirait mon pere, saichiez certennement.
Baistard se doit combaitre bien et herdiement
Si comme on le tiengne a filz, et a frere, et a parrant
Pour son grant vasselaige et pour son herdement. (vv. 24,001-8)

One must show courage and perform deeds to be counted among the lineage of heroes

and to belong, "comme on le tiengne a filz." Lion echoes these same words after Girart

successfully proves himself. Having heard of Girart's identity and of his feat of arms

performed on behalf of his cause, Lion embraces both his son and his son's deeds with a

joyful "Filz, bien viengniez, per sainte Marie! / Je vous retient a filz, vous mere fuit

m'amie" (vv. 25,703-4).

80
 What the tient/retient pair highlights is the possibility that the son might not have

been held a son he had not exhibited such great prowess. The admission "vous mere fuit

m'amie" is predicated upon Girart's demonstration of courage. Similarly, the ten

bastards of Hugh Capet, at the instigation of the wisest of them all, Henri, refuse to

present themselves before Hugh until they have acquired horses from their enemies and,

more importantly, have deeds of valor to lay before their father's eyes: "ainsi nous ferons

nous prisier et redouter / Et devant nostre pere porons plus hault parler" (vv. 2,746-47).

The underlying threat of rejection is laid out by the mother of the Grand Bdtard in

Baudouin de Sebourc.

Et .j. bastars doyt estre tellement natures

Qu'il doit estre hardis, corageus et ozes ;
Aidier doit ses amis, n'en doit estre laisses,
Car quant ,j. bastars est hardis et adures
Et qu'il est au besoing de ses amis prives
II est de ses parens biaus cousins appelleis
Et si n'eiist vaillant .ij. deniers monnaes.
Par .ij. poins, biaus dous fiaux, est li bastars ames :
Premiers par hardement, ensi qu'o'i aves :
S'uns bastars est cowars, s'ai de l'avoir asses,
Rentes et revenues et deniers monaes,
II est par son avoir souvent cousins clames ;
Par l'un de ches .ij. pois est bastars honneres.
Et se li bastars est povres cowars prouves,
II est de tous ses proisme cachies et deboutes
Ne d'omme nul vivant n'est cousins appelles,
Ains dist on que che est .j. truans esgares
Ne car il ne fut onques de leur sane engenres,
Ensi est il ades chetis maleiires
Et fust bien gentis hons, estraes de tous costes. (vv. 18,382-401)

The idea that a man ought to be judged by his deeds alone is pushed to its natural and

extreme limit in the case of the bastard, for he is obligated to prove that he belongs in

order to receive the acceptance of his lineage, either by money or by deeds. While there is

a celebration of the family's glorious blood, it is not the cause of his actions but rather the

81
hero's goal as it could be negated, "Ne car il ne fut onques de leur sane engenres." The

bastard is naked, alone and without family until he demonstrates that he has earned the

right to be called either a friz, in the case of Girart, or, more modestly, a cousins, in the

case of the Grand Batard. But if he is a "povres cowars prouves," there can be no

salvation or absolution. This is not to say that family links are not important in the

formation of the hero. The quest of the bastard to be integrated into the family proves the

contrary. But the case of the bastard highlights the conception in the late epic that

although one may be born to be a hero, one must perform that heroism before any

acknowledgement of such a standing is granted.

While stories of bastards enact the fantasy of social advancement despite stains of

birth or inferior legal status, late epic poets do not present the illegitimate child as

upsetting the social order. Despite its chaos, the epic world still works well if those

worthy of integrating into it behave accordingly. The heroism of those not yet officially

belonging to a family or not yet integrated in a social structure is no threat to either: it is a

way of strengthening both family and social structure. The bastards do not claim what is

not theirs to claim, be it the fief or the possessions of the father and his legitimate sons.

This submission to the legal and hereditary imperatives of feudal society advances the

idea that the community is solidified by the inclusion of those who demonstrate their

capacity to belong. 107 Thus, the ten bastards of Hugh Capet seek only to support their

father in his fight against the enemies of the throne of France; there is no suggestion that

they themselves might succeed him in bearing the fleur de lys. Similarly, the bastard

sons of Baudouin de Sebourc happily lend a hand in protecting him and his brothers,

107
On this point see Malfait-Dohet, "Fonction de la batardise," 172 and 176, as well as
Martin, La batardise, 275-78.

82
assisting in whatever way is asked of them; they never pretend to the benefits of

legitimacy. Even Garcion, who kills his biological father Tristan during battle only to

learn from his mouth as he lies dying that he is his son, is forgiven. Moreover, Tristan

explicitly reintegrates him into the Nanteuil family so that he can bring justice to that

very lineage by killing Clariant, the murderer of his grandfather, Gui. Bastards always

have their utility in protecting and consolidating the paternal family.

The case of Doon de Nanteuil is even more striking with respect to this. Before

learning of the circumstances of his birth, he lives an existence that parallels that of the

legitimate enfants trouves who rise from pauper to ruler by their merits. 108 But for his

bastardy, the narrative of Doon's life might have ended with a coronation if we compare

the story of his early years to those of the legitimate sons. But once reunited with his

mother, the Saracen princess Clarinde, who recognizes him during a tournament, he

learns his true identity and parentage. In explicit acceptance of his status and thus

implicitly abandoning his claim to independent glory, Doon embraces his impure origins

and proudly claims the title of bastard: 109

Dame, se dist Doon, pas ne me doit grever,

Quand il me convendra ung bastart appeller;
Mais puis que suis bastart, plus ne le veul celler:
Le bastart de Nanteul me feray appeller. (vv. 5,807-9)

He associates himself with the family, though in a diminished capacity. He makes a

claim upon the name and not upon any property. Moreover, he does so after having

demonstrated his knightly abilities on many previous occasions. When he and Tristan

108 Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 484-5.

109The first bastard of Baudouin de Sebourc does likewise. See Malfait-Dohet,

"Fonction de la batardise," 174.

83
finally recognize each other after their second meeting, Doon displays no jealousy toward

his half-brother and, while he performs exceptionally as a fighter for the remaining

12,000 lines of the poem, he never again seeks glory for himself. Rather, he forever

attempts to help his father, his half-brother, and ultimately the child of the latter. Doon

thus expiates the sin of his birth by proving himself worthy on all accounts and by

repairing, through devotion to his father's family, the potential fracture introduced by his

conception. There is certainly a visible dose of conservatism in the position, in that it

reinforces Doon's exclusion while elevating him. The inclusion of bastards like Doon,

Girart, the forty bastards of Hugh and Baudouin illustrates the expansion in the late

chanson de geste of the concepts of heroism and social inclusion in general: it is a

positive and non-threatening element that contributes beneficially to society rather than

diluting the strength of the family unit. Not unlike the social utility of the late epic,

perhaps.

The eponymous bastard of the Batard de Bouillon offers a case that complicates

the hypothesis of the full, peaceful, and benign reintegration of the bastard into the

family. This is partly explained by the fact that, even by the standards of the fourteenth-

century epic, the Batard de Bouillon remains a strange and idiosyncratic text. Robert

Francis Cook, its editor, remarks that "la conception du Batard est egalement un

phenomene litteraire isole, sans equivalent exact dans la litterature epique de la periode,"

an assessment with which I agree." 0 Many details differentiate this particular bastard

from the others: he is the result of adultery, which marks his birth as even more sinful; he

is raised in a recently converted family of Saracen lords by his mother Sinamonde with

110
Batard de Bouillon: chanson de geste, ed. Robert Francis Cook (Geneva: Droz, 1972),
XLI.

84
the full knowledge that his father is king of Jerusalem; he is supposed to be the son of an

actual historical figure from the (somewhat) recent past; and, finally, his greatness is

predicted by Morgan and Arthur in a merveilleux interlude. 111

And, of course, he is given an epic all to himself rather than playing a supporting

role to his father or brother." 2 Following the murder of his cousin during a chess game

in which the sore loser called him a bastard, the bastard is exiled from his mother's

family and sent for judgment at the court of his father, Baudouin, who finds him not

guilty and receives him with open arms. 1 ' 3 But the batard has enemies among his

father's family: the legitimate son Orry, who proved to be an evil tyrant when he

governed Jerusalem in Baudouin's absence, and his mother, Margalie, are both jealous of

and ill-disposed toward the batard whom they see as threat. Margalie goes so far as to

question Baudouin's paternity:

"Sire, trop le prisies, dont che n'est mie drois.

Que che soit li vos fielx, ne saves se ch'est voirs,
Car espoir que sa mere, qui tant a les crins bloys,
Ot devant vous afaire a prinche ou a bourgois." (vv. 4,243-46)

111See Anna Ravantos Berange, "L'expiation de la naissance illegitime," 283. For this
historical basis, or lack thereof, of the existence of a bastard of Bouillon, see Alan V.
Murray, "Why a Bastard: A Possible Historical Origin for the Illegitimate Hero of the
Batard de Bouillon," Neuphilologishe Mitteilungen 98 (1997): 179-185.

112
Although Edmond-Rene Labande posits that a lost poem on the Grand Batard de
Sebourc may have existed. Etude sur Baudouin de Sebourc: chanson de geste. Legende
poetique de Baudouin II du Bourg, roi de Jerusalem (Paris: Librarie Droz, 1949), 119.

" 3 The blow delivered during a chess game is a much used image in the chansons de
geste. It occurs in Raoul de Cambrai and Renaut de Montauban, to name but two of the
most popular epics. For more on the topos of the chess game and violence in the chanson
de geste, see L.-F. Flutre, " La partie d'echecs de Dieudonne de Hongrie" in Melanges
offerts a Rita Lejeune, 2 vols. (Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1969), 2: 757-768 where the author
analyses the frequency of the scene.

85
The batard is thus inordinately contested from the beginning, despite the imprimatur

given to him by the world of Feerie, where his father learned of his upcoming birth and

future courage. It is, however, incorrect to assert with Monique Malfait-Dohet that

"[f]rappe du sceau de l'heroi'sme par sa designation feerique, il [the bastard] refuse

rapidement sa position de second et s'oppose aux enfants legitimes for he does

nothing but endeavor to please both his half-brother and his father, like the other

illegitimate sons. 114 Thus when he first rejoins his father's family and is promised by

Baudouin "moullier et haute seignourie", he pledges that "Le bien que me feres ne

refuserai mie, / Si le deservirai a l'espee fourbie" (vv. 4,127, 4129-30). Like the other

bastards in the epic, he aims to elevate and serve the name of his father and his lineage.

Despite the fact that his greatness was prophesied to his father by King Arthur himself,

the batard never aims to subvert the order of things.

But the destiny of this particular bastard swerves from other poems in having the

batard in contestation with his half-brother. This bifurcates in the following directions:

Either toward an eventual moral censure of bastardy - bastards, or extramarital sex in

general, bring discord in the family - or toward birth's insufficiency to confer value and

the necessity of deeds to earn a glory which cannot be simply hereditary - as the

deviousness of Orry suggests. After trying and failing to have the batard killed during a

tournament, Orry decides to enlist his half-brother in a plot to poison king Baudouin,

promising him two kingdoms to rule in exchange for his complicity. The batard, enraged

by his brother's wickedness, turns the tables on him, calling into question his legitimacy:

Puist dist: "Fiex a putain, trop as le coer felon!

Onkes tu ne venis du bon sane de Bullon,

114 Malfait-Dohet, "Fonction de la batardise," 174.

86
 Que veus ton pere metre a tel destruction.
Mais foy que doy Saint Pierre, c'on kiert en Pre Noiron,
Ichi endroit mores, et sans confession;
Jamais ne penseres vers home traison!" (vv. 4,342-47)

After this inflamed speech, he draws a knife and kills him on the spot. It is clear that from

the batard"s point of view, he was only defending his father's life and the family's honor

by purging from both a man unworthy of bearing its name, a name to which he has only a

tenuous claim. Malfait-Dohet also makes the contradictory claim that "C'est la naissance

qui valorise l'individu. C'est pourquoi Orry ie malsain' (4, 414) est, dans la tete du

Batard, exclu du lignage du Cygne." 115 In this particular instance, it is not birth which

valorizes the individual. It is what he does with the abilities given to him to live up to his

birth that valorize, and this is made abundantly clear by the batard's reaction to the plot.

That being said, the fealty of the batard to his lineage, the feelings that push him to

extreme violence, will be his undoing. 116 He is brought before Baudouin who, in a

behavior worthy of the late epic's irascible, violent and unforgiving Charlemagne, refuses

to believe the batard''s accusations against his legitimate son." 7 Though he wishes to put

" 5 Monique Malfait-Dohet, "Le heros epique du XlVe siecle est-il l'image archaique
d'un monde qui s'efface ou le reflet d'un monde nouveau?," in Mondes nouveaux et
nouveaux mondes au Moyen Age: actes du colloque du Centre d'etudes medievales de
I'Universite de Picardie Jules Verne, Amieus, 1992, eds. Danielle Buschinger and
Wolfgang Spiewok (Greifswald: Reineke-Verlag, 1994), 79.

116I fail to see the ambiguities in his motivations mentioned in Ravantos Berange,
"L'expiation de la naissance illegitime," 289: "le poete le [Orry] fait perir aux mains de
son demi-frere pour des raisons qui demeurent ambigues, comme le demeure a jamais la
vraie nature de ce batard qui ne se depouillera jamais tout a fait de la violence
archetypique des sarrasins litteraires."

117Baudouin de Bouillon is far from being regal and magnanimous in the poem, and he
shares many characteristics of the negative portrayal of royal authority common to some
epics. For the evolution of the depiction of the king in the chanson de geste, see
Dominique Boutet, "Les chansons de geste et l'affermissement du pouvoir royal, 1100-

87
him to death, Baudouin is convinced to commute the sentence to exile at the urging of the

wisest man of the court, Hugue de Tabarie, who plays Naimes to Baudouin's

Charlemagne. It is at this point in the poem that the story of the bdtard takes a turn for

the worse and falls into a tragicomedy of sorts wherein all of his enterprises fail, in one

way or another. All the elements of the poem "sont agences dans [le Bdtard de Bouillon}

de fa?on a denier progressivement au batard la moindre possibility d'expier sa naissance

en conquerant le role de sauveur de la communaute paternelle et de perpetuateur du

lignage."" 8 Yet, this opportunity is denied to the bastard not because of his impure

origins or deficient character (notwithstanding his precipitate violence, which is shared

by many epic heroes). As the legitimate son has already corrupted the lineage, there is

therefore no "communaute paternelle" to save - it is rotted from the inside. Thus, the

failure and exclusion of the bdtard do not contradict a reading of the bastard as a hero

capable of being readmitted into the community; that he cannot rescue the Kingdom of

Jerusalem from its eventual destruction is no fault of his own.

The question of the "sauveur de la communaute paternelle" leads to a final point

in relation to the bastard in the late epic. As demonstrated, they never, with the exception

of the Bdtard de Bouillon, represent a problem or a threat. Instead, they serve in a

celebrated way as ancillaries of the paternal lineage in which they earn their place by

courage and skill, not by blood or hereditary right. But while celebrating their abilities

1250," Annales (1982): 3-14. It is tempting to see Baudouin's refusal to believe him as a
corollary to the inability of bastards to testify in court "contre 'franche personne'", a
point of law mentioned by Chevailler, "Observations sur le droit de batardisc," 388.
However, the scene of the king refusing to absolve the "just" killer of his "unjust" son or
close relative is found in so many other epics, notably Huon de Bordeaux, that we can
ascribe it to this tradition rather than read it as a legal commentary.

1 18
Ravantos Berange, "L'expiation de la naissance illegitime," 283.

88
and characters, the late epic trouveres usually shy away from making bastards the central

figure of the epic and from making them the "redeemers" of the afflicted paternal

community. The fathers are persecuted, dispossessed, and/or exiled. The task of

redemption is reserved for the legitimate sons." 9 For, even if the bastard opens up a

trove of narrative possibilities for the poem, his role remains modest and subordinate. In

one case only in the late epic does the bastard, who is not accepted ipso facto by the

community, become its savior and perpetuator: the Galien of Galien le restore, a

fifteenth-century remaniement of the Chanson de Roland and the Pelerinage de

Charlemagne a Jesuralem. [20 Galien is the son of Olivier and the princess Jacqueline of

Constantinople, the direct consequence of the gab in the Pelerinage de Charlemagne.

Her father, Hugues, furious about her pregnancy, exiles her and, once her son is born, she

places him under the care of her uncle, the count of Damascus, so as to safeguard his life.

Galien grows up to be a beautiful and.strong adolescent and is brought to the court of his

grandfather during a cour pleniere. Hugues demands to know the origins of this

wondrous lad. After much hesitation, Jacqueline reveals that he is her son. Hugues, in a

119Although as Martin, La batardise, 5, points out, legitimate sons who are en/ants
trouves are indeed "faux batards."

l2l) Thehistory of the composition of the Galien is very convoluted. The sole existing
verse version of the poem is the Galien of the Cheltenham manuscript, itself probably
based on lost prose and verse versions of the story from the 13 th and 14 th centuries. Peter
F. Dembowski summarizes the filiation of this Galien proposed by Jules Horrent thus:
"The original (lost) Chanson de Gal'ien was composed in about 1200. It was a recasting
of the epic materials taken from a rhymed Roland (lost), and a (lost) version of the
Pelerinage. This Galien / was incorporated, sometime in the second half of the thirteenth
century, into the verse cycle of Garin de Monglane (lost), since Olivier was a grandson of
Garin. In the fourteenth century this cycle was recast into the "second Garin remanie"
(also lost). Only in the second half of the fifteenth century was Le Galien de Cheltenham
elaborated from the "second" Garin de Monglane." "What or Whom did Galien Restore,"
Olifant 3 no. 10 (Autumn 1983-Summer 1984): 86.

89
forgiving mood, could not be more delighted. He immediately embraces his grandson

and offers him a high position at his court. But having just learned of his origins, Galien

refuses, pledging that he will not rest until he has brought assistance to Olivier in

whatever way possible.

Galien thus leaves Constantinople and makes his way to France, where he learns

that his father is at Roncevaux with Charlemagne's army. He also encounters his other

grandfather, Regnier, and his aunt, la belle Aude. When they learn that he is related to

them, Regnier tries to entice Galien to stay with them with the free use of his belongings

and a place among his "conseil prive." Galien refuses with the same reason with which

he declined his maternal grandfather's similar offer: he must go and serve his father. 121

Unfortunately, Olivier is already fighting the army of Marsile at Roncevaux, and Galien

will reach the rearguard of Charlemagne's host only to witness the last dying stand of

Olivier, Turpin and Roland. There he receives the sword of his father in a unambiguous

symbolic moment of the passing of the torch, of a "restoration" of the death of Olivier

and the twelve peers by Galien himself. 122 This new hero will prove invaluable in

ensuring the stability of the Carolingian world in a post-Roland age and the continuity of

the lineage of Olivier. It should be noted that Durendal still disappears in Galien, and that

121Jules Horrent describes the single-mindedness of purpose of Galien thus: "Galien se

fonde en effet sur le grand theme classique du fils parti en quete de son pere et qui venge
triomphalement la mort de celui-ci. [...] II n'accumule pas les exploits pour accroitre son
renom personnel et en nimber la gloire la tete de sa dame. L'objet de son action
victorieuse est hors de lui et de son amour, cet objet, - rechercher et venger son pcre -
reste epique." In La Chanson de Roland dans les litteratures fran^aise et espagnole au
Moyen Age (Paris: Societe d'Edition "Les Belles Lettres," 1951), 400.

l22 The epithet "restore" has occasioned many debates as it plays both on the idea of
something or somebody being restored as well as something or somebody doing the
restoring. For more on this, see Dembrowski, "What or Whom," 90-8.

90
Roland himself still "remains a terminal figure [...], a hero so thoroughly defined by the

past that both he and his sword are excluded from the future in the words of R.

Howard Bloch. 123 And yet, the glory of the douze pairs lives on in Galien.

Peter Dembowski, exploring the significance of both the epithet restore and of

Galien himself in the renewal of epic material in the late Middle Ages, writes: "It is a

clear testimony to the strong restoratory tendencies of chivalric civilization of the

fourteenth and fifteenth century. The literary ideal was sought largely in the "re-creation,"

in the restoration of the great stories in the past. Is not our Galien a pure expression of the

conscious desire to re-create the "real" saga of Roncesvals in a new, but consciously

restored, i.e. archaistic form?" 124 The fact that this restoration is operated by an

illegitimate child is not emphasized enough. Considerations of the bastardy of Galien

occupy a significant portion of the poem's ideological makeup and of the composition of

Galien himself as a character. Galien's quest for his father is not his only attempt at

earning legitimacy. Other characters constantly downplay the fact that he is not the result

of a lawful union between Olivier and Jacqueline; they bring up the fanciful fiction, at

least in so far as the source-poem (Le Pelerinage) is concerned, that Olivier firmly

intended to go back to Constantinople to make an honest woman out of Jacqueline. Thus

Regnier prays that:

"Beau filz," ce dist Regnier, "bien priser la doit on,

123R. Howard Bloch, Etymologies and Genealogies: Toward a Literary Anthropology of

the French Middle Ages (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983), 105.

124Dembowski, "What or Whom," 97. The canonical reference to the nostalgia and desire
for a recreation of the past in the "chivalric civilization of the fourteenth and fifteenth
century" was and remains the chapter on the "Heroic Life" in Johann Huizinga, The
Autumn of the Middle Ages, trans. Rodney J. Payton and Ulrich Mammitzsch (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1996).

91
 Je prie Jesucript qui souffri passion,
Que mon filz Olivier qui tant a de renom
Puisse retourner d'Espaigne d'avec le roy Charlon,
De quoy la vostre mere l'ait encore a baron
125
C'on ne [vos] puisse nommer ne bastart ne ganpon."

And during the pathetic reunion of Galien and Olivier, the later, as he lies dying, laments

that he will not be able to fulfill his promise to marry Jacqueline:

"Non voir, mon filz," Olivier dit luy a,

"Quant en Constantin fu sung jour qui passe,
De ma main Tafiay et elle m'afia,
Que je l'espouseraie; mais nous venismes 9a [in Spain],
Ne puis ne retournames, dont mon ceur ire a; [...]" (vv. 2,910-14.) 126

The insistence on the marriage which never happened but should have and would have,

were it not for the mishaps of the Spanish campaign of Charlemagne, is significant

because Galien is the only one of the bastards to achieve a kingly position in the epic. He

becomes emperor of Constantinople, succeeding his grandfather, who had been poisoned

by his treacherous sons partly out of jealousy for the favor he showed Galien.

Needless to say, Galien avenges this murder. This near legitimization of Galien

by the anticipated wedding of his parents explains in part why he plays such an important

role in this poem. We find this sentiment echoed in the twelfth-century Raoul de

Cambrai wherein Bernier fully accepts his bastardy, even after his father Ybert has made

him his heir. At the same time, when the daughter of Gautier urges him to make her his

125
Le Galien de Cheltenham, eds. David M. Dougherty and Eugene B. Barnes
(Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 1981), vv. 845-850.

l26 MargaretBurland offers an excellent analysis of the theme of love and marriage in the
poem. She convincingly argues that while the text gives the appearance of promoting an
ideal of courtly love, there is much more strength placed on the idea of marriage. See
"The Curse of Courtly Love in Galien le RestoreOlifant, 25, no. 1-2 (2006): 151-160.
For the recurring mention of the hypothetical nuptials of Olivier and Jacqueline, see 157.

92
wife, he initially shies away on account of his illegitimacy, all the while describing it as

the result of an unfortunate act of divine will:

Dist B[erniers], 'Dame, n'estes mie senee.

Ne suis pas fix de mollier espouse,
Ains sui bastars, n'i a mestier celee;
Mais gentils feme neporcant fu me mere,
Et gentis hom est quens Y[bers] mes pere.
II prist la dame en la soie contree(e)
1 97
Mais ne plot Dieu q'i[l] l'eust espouse; [...]

The audience is never meant to forget the origins of Bernier, but his constant defense of

the innocence of his mother in his conception and his apparent humble acceptance that

his bastardy was the result of God's will have the combined result of lessening the

impurity of his origins. Similarly, even though Galien is a bastard, he would not have

been one if events had not conspired against the reunion/union of his parents. In this

paradoxical way, the idea that bastards are not a threat to legitimacy and proper

succession remains unquestioned, while the bastard himself is exalted and given the

chance to become the ultimate hero of the Carolingian world. Galien, the bastard who

reaches the highest peak, cannot be conflated and associated fully with the other bastards

discussed above.

The hero of the fourteenth-century is not the fully formed man of the earlier epic;

he is neither so assured of his identity as Roland or Olivier, nor as certain of his purpose

as Raoul or Guillaume. Where these earlier heroes encountered hardships and trials,

those events confirmed what they already were and did not engage them in a process of

discovery. The initiation of a young man into a life of arms and adventures is in some

way always based on nature in opposition to norreture, for they are almost all

127Raoul de Cambrai, ed. and trans. Sarah Kay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), vv.
5,547-53.

93
predestined to be heroes on account of the noble blood running through their veins. But a

discourse on the equality of possibilities is simultaneously present in the later poems.

These tendencies are pushed to their natural conclusions in the case of bastard sons,

because the circumstances of their births mark them as outcasts, a process which they can

undo through deeds alone, without being able to rely on the otherwise given good will of

a father who could protect them. The presence of multiple bastards in the late epic -

almost all contain at least one - shouldn't thus be seen as a mere corollary of the

romantic escapades of the main characters. They are also a means for the poets to

suggest, with even more force than in earlier epics, that a worthy knight is made manifest

through his deeds, in the dual sense that he fulfills his role through them and becomes

one through them, whatever his origins. The bastard, like the young man raised by

peasants who dreams of being a knight despite the disdain of those around him, also

partakes in this social fantasy. In the world of the late epic, those who feel its call can

renew chivalry.

The positive portrayal of the bastard in the late chanson de geste leads us to

reconsider Gautier's stern assessment that the fourteenth and fifteenth century were

"vraiment les siecles de la batardise et du batard" in more ways than one. Despite the

valor of the bastards and the attachment they display to their lineage and to upholding the

feudal order form which they were estranged, Gautier concluded nonetheless that "il y a

la un triste abaissement du sens moral, et qu'il faut fletrir." 128 Of course, the great

medievalist was not only thinking of the characters in the poems, but of the poems

themselves when he condemned them for their immorality. The late epic is not only

128 '
Gautier, Les Epopees frangaises, 1: 533.

94
filled with bastards, it is a "bastardized genre" in the eyes of Gautier and many of his

fellow nineteenth-century critics. Contaminated by romance, filled with love, wild

adventures, and the growing presence of the fantastic, the late chansons de geste are as

much an object of fletrissure as the bastards who people them. And yet, late epic poets

claim the same lineage as their predecessors, they portray their songs as grounded in the

same truth of the croniques de saint Denis, despite the presence of elements which seem

heterogeneous to the genre. Thus, having performed great deeds in order to earn his

place at his father's side, Girart presents himself to Lion and, when asked who he is,

answers:

Oyr, dit li bastard, foy que doie saint Claron!

Mez cosin est Ogier, et li boin due Naymon,
Et Guillamme d'Orange, Aymery de Nerbon,
Et Iernalz de Baulande, et Girart de Roucillon,
Richard de Normandie qui cuer ait de lion,
L'arcevesque de Rain qui Turpin ait a nom,
Et maint boin chevalier du roialme Charlon. (vv. 25,654-59)

The tronveres of the fourteenth-century, writing their "bastardized" genre, creating new

heroes and new poems, never claim other families than the great heroic ones. Through

many different vessels (surprising narrative structures, additions of new characters), the

late epic poets again and again try out and test heroism in a spirit of continuity and

restoration.

95
Chapter 2

Marvelous Rectifications

With barely contained irascibility and evident sadness, Leon Gautier resumed thus

his thoughts concerning the invasion of the matiere de Bretagne in the late chanson de

geste: "Mais que ces traditions, pleines de fables ridicules et d'un merveilleux

antichretien, aient penetre notre propre epopee nationale, c'est ce que nous trouvons tres

regrettable. Et pourtant ce fut ce qui arriva. [...] De la une confusion deplorable qui a

certainement precipite la fin de notre poesie epique." 1 Sounding a slightly more positive

note, Francois Suard more recently remarked that "ce qui frappe surtout [in the late epic],

c'est l'aspect cumulatif des traits merveilleux, comme si les nouveaux auteurs ne

voyaient de salut litteraire que dans une coexistence constante entre leurs heros et un

univers merveilleux aux multiples facettes." 2 Although these critics differ in their

assessment of the role of the merveilleux in the chanson de geste of the fourteenth and

fifteenth centuries, they agree that something happened to the epic after a certain date

(Huon de Bordeaux often being considered or blamed as the terminus a quo). Leaving

aside Gautier's value judgment, I will propose a reading of the merveilleux in the late

chanson de geste on its own terms, especially as it pertains to the construction and the

presentation of the epic hero. I will argue that the merveilleux does not only insure, at

least partly, the "salut litteraire" of the genre as a whole, but also, at the diegetic level, the

1 Leon Gautier, Les epopees franqaise. Etudes sur les origines et I'histoire de la
litterature nationale, 2 vols (Paris: Victor Palme, Libraire-Editeur, 1865), 1:425.

2Francois Suard, "Figures du romanesque dans l'epique de la fin du Moyen Age," in Le

Romanesque aux XIV~' et XV~' siecles, ed. Danielle Bohler (Bordeaux: Presses
Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2009), 146.
salut of the heroes themselves. The merveilleux is not only a literary addition which gives

the reader something to marvel at, it also functions as a necessary supplement to a hero

who is in need of exogenous succor. It consequently reveals an element of pessimism

underlying the conception of a late epic protagonist who is no longer fully himself.

As the terms merveilleux, Christian merveilleux, supernatural, "Arthurian" and

"romance" influence are heavily overdetermined, I will first lay the necessary

groundwork by defining these terms and by outlining different approaches to the

questions of medieval intertextuality and generic interference. I will then test my

definitions through a reading of the larron-enchanteur Maugis d'Aigremont, a character

who appears to have a foot in two literary worlds and who plays an important role in the

classic late-twelfth-century poem of revolt, Renaut de Montauban. Interestingly, in the

cyclical elaboration around Renaud, it is not the saintly knight whose life is amplified,

but his cousin Maugis in the thirteenth-century Maugis d'Aigremont, a poem which

invites us to reconsider the relationship of the epic quest with the supernatural.

Discussing the role of the merveilleux in Maugis d'Aigremont will illuminate how it is

that poets ultimately reintegrate it within an epic framework. While Maugis is a

character in whom the knightly and the merveilleux are unified, an examination of the

protagonists of Tristan de Nanteuil and Lion de Bourges will allow us to see how the

merveilleux comes to play a fundamental role in the rectification of the hero and the

promotion of the chivalric ethos as both characters appear to be at risk of failure without

its help. Symptom and instrument of change, the merveilleux insures the continuation of

the chanson de geste, and the continuation of the epic project; a cure which is not without

its side effects.

97
The Matter of the Matieres

In his Buevon de Conmarchis, a remaniement of Le Siege de Barbastre written in

the last third of the thirteenth century, Adenet le Roi quickly informs his reader that he

will retell the story using the correct meter, as was his wont. 3 This, he tells us, will be the

only significant difference between his version and the matere he had found in a "moult

trcs biau livre" given to him by the courteous monk Nicolas whom he had met at the

abbey of Saint-Denis. 4 Adenet insists that he will not add "men<;onge ne oiseuse" (v. 23).

More to the point, he will neither incorporate anything outside his subject matter nor any

fantastic hogwash:

Je ne vous dirai mie dou souge Erminolai

Ne conment Crucados ala au virelai
Quant il trouva les fees en la forest dou glai,
Ains dirai vraie estoire dont ja ne mentirai. (vv. 25-28)

Although the identities of both Crucados and Erminolai remain unknown, it is fair to

accept the poem's editor Albert Henry's conjecture that they are characters from some

lost tale or poem in which the fantastic played an important role. 5 What is more certain is

that Adenet is here commenting on the growing presence of the merveilleux in the

chanson de geste, and that he decidedly disapproves of this development. Medieval poets

are accustomed to prefacing their works with derogatory remarks concerning the

accomplishments and flaws of their predecessors and colleagues, and are often all too

3Adenet tends to be particularly zealous in promoting the quality of his versification.

See, for example, the beginning of Berte as grans pies, ed. Albert Henry (Geneva: Droz,
1982), vv. 13-22.

4Adenet le Roi, Buevon de Conmarchis, ed. Albert Henry (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints,
1996), v. 18.

5 See the annotations to these verses in Adenet le Roi, Buevon de Conmarchis, 165-66.

98
happy to point out where others have erred. 6 But what we have in Adenet's text extends

beyond a mere advertisement for the quality of his work; it also must be seen as a

statement of generic conformity. Adenet identifies traits which he deems inappropriate

for the matere he is reworking. He aspires to generic purity and "s'eleve contre Tabus du

merveilleux, de descriptions romantiques, contre l'addition de circonstances

extraordinaires," in the words of Adolphe-Jacques Dickman. 7 It is not that the

supernatural will play no role in the poem, as Dickman's enumeration of the abundant

"supernatural" elements of Adenet's poem demonstrates. 8 It is rather that ccrtain

supernatural elements are deemed unfit to be part of the fabric of this particular poem,

namely the world of the faeries and of mysteriously magical forests—in other words: a

different fictional realm.

The problem is then settled. Adenet rejects "les fees" and their "forest dou glai"

while he sees no problem with the superhuman strength of his heroes or other exceptional

elements. These can be said to belong to the epic matrix, a matrix onto which he refuses

to graft heterogeneous fees. Thus, we may draw the conclusion that in the latter part of

the thirteenth century a professional writer and poet like Adenet still recognizes the

validity of the distinctions made by Jean Bodel between the three different materes in

6For a discussion of the prologues of the chansons de geste in general see Manfred
Gsteiger, "Note sur les preambules des chansons de geste," Cahiers de Civilisation
medievale 2, no.2 (1959): 213-220. For an analysis of Adenet's prologue in particular
and his attention to generic markers, see Silvere Menegaldo, "Adenet le Roi tel qu'en ses
prologues," Cahiers de Recherches Medievales et Humanistes 18 (2005): 309-328.

7Adolphe-Jacques Dickman, Le role du surnaturel dans les chansons de geste (Geneva:

Slatkine Reprints, 1974), 12.

8 Dickman, Le role du surnaturel, 13-14.

99
which medieval French narrative poetry is divided. In his thirteenth-century Chanson des

Saisnes, Bodel declares:

N'en sont que trois materes a nul vivant:

De France et de Bretaigne et de Ronme la grant;
Ne de ces trois materes n'i a nule samblant,
Li conte de Bretaigne si sont vain et plaisant,
Et cil de Ronme sage et de sens aprendant,
Cil de France sont voir chascun jour aparant. 9

In this general framework, we could argue that what Adenet is excluding from his

Buevon falls under the general purview of the conte de Bretaigne. He resists the

temptations to detract from the truth of the matere de France. The world of the matere

de Bretaigne is the Celtic and/or Arthurian universe, steeped in pleasant mysteries and

magic. 10 On the other hand, France, as a place and a matere, is the locus of truth. This is

not to say that these poems display what the modern reader would recognize as a realistic

universe. As Jean Bodel himself insists, the Carolingian world is under the protection of

the divine supernatural, and since God loves Charlemagne, He "fist maint miracle por lui

en son vivant" (v. 124). Both here and in Adenet's later poem, many incredible and

marvelous things (unconnected to the world of the faeries) do indeed come to pass.

However, would an apparent incursion of the matter of Britain into the matter of Francc

derail the whole project of the latter by adding the vain to the voir? Are such incursions

even possible? For, it will soon become apparent, Adenet can perhaps be seen as an

9 Jean Bodel, Chanson des Saisnes, ed. Annette Brasseur (Geneva: Droz, 1989), vv. 6-11.

10The literature on the matere de Bretaigne and its wonders is considerable. For an
overview of the treatment of the Celtic merveilleux in the High Middle Ages, see
Lucienne Carasso-Bulow, The Merveilleux in Chretien de Troves' Romances (Geneva:
Librairie Droz, 1976), Christine Ferlampin-Acher, Merveilles et topiques merveilleuses
dans les romans medievaux (Paris: Honore Champion, 2003), as well as Jean-Rene
Valette, La Poetique du merveilleux dans le Lancelot en Prose (Paris: Honore
Champion, 1998).

100
isolated figure amongst the trouveres of the later Middle Ages, a vox clamantis amongst

poets who will increasingly come to use and rely on supernatural elements (including

those belonging to the matter of Britain) in the setting of their chansons de geste.

Though scholars have been unable to identify the Erminolai and Crucados of

Adenet's prologue, it is within the realm of possibility that these two names would have

evoked a distinct literary universe, another matere, another genre. Richard Trachsler

suggests a mode of intertextual analysis based precisely on proper names. Trachsler

juxtaposes Jean Bodel's prologue to the Chanson des Saisnes and John of Garland's rota

Vergili from his Parisiana Poetria wherein three classical styles are associated with three

social types: the miles dominans [epic fighter], the agricola [the peasant], and the pastor

otiosus [the shepherd]." Though not directly applicable to vernacular literature (since

the three materes are all articulated in the "high style"), the conceptual usefulness of

Garland's model consists in making us realize that "l'univers gravite [...] autour de la

12
persona'" through which are derived all the other parameters of the text concerned.

Trachsler invites us to see "dans les noms propres 1'element le plus efficace pour

reconnaitre avec certitude un univers litteraire" for each name bears within itself "un petit

recit," "une histoire (ou plusieurs)." 13 Thus, mentions of Charlemagne and Roland,

Arthur and Morgue, Aeneas and Hector immediately evoke different materes, different

" Richard Trachsler, Disjointures-Conjointures: Etude sur I'interference des matieres

narratives dans la litterature franqaise du Moyen Age (Tubingen and Basel: Francke,
2000), 16-17. John of Garland's model is based on Virgil's three main works: the
Aeneid, Eglogues, and Georgics. Trachsler's study has been greatly influential in the
writing of this chapter, although I differ with him on several interpretative points.
Footnotes will make clear my debt to him.

12 Ibid, 20.

13 Idem.

101
stories and, arguably, different expectations on the part of the reader or the auditor. A

Crucados is not only a character; he is a story unto himself with a definite geography (the

forest) and associates (the fees).

There is accordingly a possible connection, albeit imperfect, between the three

materes with their corresponding names and the notions of literary genres and "horizon

d'attente" as defined by H.R. Jauss, on whom Trachsler relies heavily to establish his grid

of analysis. A genre, in Jauss' definition, is a historically determined and constructed

category that has to be understood "non comme genera (classes) dans un sens logique,

mais comme groupes ou families historiques." 14 In turn, these families are in constant

evolution in a dynamic process by which each new text "evoque pour le lecteur

(I'auditeur) l'horizon d'une attente et de regies qu'il connait grace aux textes antcricurs,

et qui subissent aussitot des variations, des rectifications, des modifications ou bien qui

sont simplement reproduits." 15 Despite this dynamism, Jauss nevertheless erects

impenetrable barriers between the different families. This manifests itself, inter alia, by

the "non-interchangeabilite des personnages de la chanson de geste et du roman

courtois." 16 Trachsler considers texts in which characters appear to transgress this rule

and to travel from one genre to another: Arthur, Morgan and other estre faes who make

an appearance in, predominantly, the late chanson de geste. For since "les modeles

theoriques [John of Garland's, Jean Bodel's, and Jauss'] decrivent (et se fondent sur) des

textes qui respectent idealement la double regie implicite qui exige: un texte, une matiere,

14Hans Robert Jauss, "Litterature medievale et theorie des genres," Poetique 1 (1970):
42.

15 Ibid, 49.

16 Ibid., 46.

102
un texte, un genre," it becomes fruitful to reflect on texts which do not, as well as on the

meanings and consequences for the epic of what Trachsler calls "1' interference" of the

materes.11

The usefulness of Trachsler's reliance on proper names is patent. By focusing on

such strong matere signifiers as Arthur, Morgue (and the loci of Avalon and/or Faerie),

we are able to delimit a fixed number of heterogeneous elements introduced in the

chanson de geste. Considering the significant number of texts in which these characters

appear, such an approach offers a valuable structure for analyzing and comparing the

functions fulfilled and the roles played by these elements. Trachsler analyzes the

following late epic poems in which Morgue or Arthur appear: Tristan de Nanteuil, Lion

de Bourges, Le Batard de Bouillon, the fourteenth-century decasyllabic Roman Ogier, La

Bataille Loquifer, and Huon de Bordeaux along with two poems from its cycle {Le

Roman d'Auberon and Esclarmonde). In all these poems, the Arthurian siblings inhabit

the world of Faerie or Avalon. It is this non-epic space, this Ailleurs perceived as

radically other than the Carolingian world, which produces the main points of tension in

Trachsler's analysis as he presents the two worlds as fundamentally disjointed, unable to

coexist permanently. This implies that the hero with a foot in both will eventually have

to choose between one or the other because each represents different values and codes

which ultimately cannot be reconciled: namely, pleasant purposelessness, individual love

and courtliness in Faerie and constant striving in the feudal world. 18 The interference of

another literary matter creates a disjointure, to reuse Trachsler's terms.

17 Trachsler, Disjointures-Conjointures, 46 (his italics).

18 Ibid., 148.

103
 For the moment, however, it is important to recognize two unacknowledged

problems with Trachsler's reliance on proper names to delimit his corpus of chansons de

geste. Firstly, while Arthur and Morgue, and the function of election through the

merveilleux they represent, only appear in the texts listed above, there are a number of

other texts in which some estres faes make an appearance without their lord and lady. It

remains to be seen if these texts, and those analyzed by Traehsler, ultimately conform to

the conflictual typology he proposes or if there is, in fact, more convergence than

divergence between the two worlds. In the following, I will test the pervasiveness of

Trachsler's views of the disjointure created by generic interference by demonstrating

how the "non-epic" is recuperated within the quest of the characters. In which case, the

growing use of the merveilleux (or even its abuse) implies less a fracture of the epic

universe than a comment upon the epic world that fully integrates the merveilleux.

Secondly, the evocative power of the names of Arthur and Morgue and their faes

companions leads Traehsler to underestimate the similar roles played by supernatural

elements not linked to the Arthurian world in the chansons de geste; that is, the growing

syncretism between different types of supernatural manifestations. This is not to say that

notions of intertextuality and generic interference will be abandoned. Indeed, it would be

difficult to see how the forgoing generic categories would not lead almost inevitably to an

abdication of hermeneutic pretensions. If nothing else, Adenet's prologue should make

us aware that categories of literary difference remain alive well into the late thirteenth

century, and beyond.

In the previous chapter, I suggested that we find in the late epic a reflection on the

expansion of the heroic pantheon through the self-definition of the young heroes and their

104
ideological engagements with the notion of the chivalric life. This subtle transformation

in the representation of the hero was fundamentally optimistic as it placed man in control

of his destiny, notwithstanding social obstacles located in a realist framework: social

prejudices, lack of wealth, perceived low or illegitimate birth, etc. Counterbalancing and

interacting with a more realistic portrayal of social conditions (leaving the wish-

fulfillming conclusion of these trials and tribulations aside) is the growing presence of the

merveilleux in the late chanson de geste. In what follows, I will investigate the ways in

which the merveilleux affects and inflects the representation of the late epic hero. Two

sides of the same heroic coin, one engaging with social redefinition, the other with an

almost metaphysical questioning, lead us to wonder if the late chansons de geste depict a

fantasy of advancement or a fantasy tout court.

Scholars have devoted considerable effort over the past thirty years to defining

and attempting to comprehend what exactly constitutes the merveilleux for the medieval

imagination. In an important article, Jacques Le Goff posited that the supernatural in the

medieval West could be divided in three general categories: the miraculosus pertaining to

miracles and acts of God; the magicus having to do with inexplicable dark forces; and

finally, the mirabilis, a much broader category encompassing the "surnaturcl non-

chretien" as well as a wide variety of natural and geographical phenomena and almost

anything else at which one might marvel. 19 Literary scholars traditionally distinguish

between the merveilleux associated with the Arthurian world (sometimes translated as

"the marvelous" in English) that appears to partake of both the mirabilis and a

19Jacques Le Goff, "Le merveilleux dans l'Occident medieval," in L'imaginaire

medieval (Paris: Gallimard, 1985), 17-35.

105
recuperated magicus, and the supernatural elements of the chanson de geste which come

closer to the miraculosus.

As mentioned, Jean Bodel explicitly associates the matter of France with the

miracles accomplished by God for the sake of Charlemagne. One easily thinks of the

Archangel Gabriel lifting Roland's soul to Heaven or God arresting the sun so as to allow

the emperor the time to avenge his nephew in the Chanson de Roland. One might also

consider how God sends a mysterious cloud to halt the combat between Roland and

Olivier in Girart de Vienne or a bolt of lightning to temporarily halt the battle between

Girart and Charlemagne in Girart de Roussillon. 20 These supernatural manifestations,

usually ascribed directly to God, are described as the "Christian merveilleux" or

supernatural. In the words of Micheline Combarieu du Gres, this surnaturel is that which

"concerne plus precisement le domaine religieux au sens strict du terme, e'est-a-dire,

pour l'epopee medievale fran^aise, les faits, evenements, actions non rationnels qui

rentrent dans un systeme chretien de conception de Dieu, du monde, des hommes et de

leurs rapports." 21 This "Christian merveilleux" is thus the manifestation of the immanent

presence of God in the world; of the support that He brings to His followers and of His

wrath against those who offend Him. This form of the supernatural is directly correlated

20For the punctual interventions of God as well as of the merveilleux in the cycle de la
revolte, see Valerie Naudet, "La merveille et les motifs merveilleux dans le cycle epique
de la revolte," in line etrange constance: les motifs merveilleux dans la litterature
d'expression franqaise du Moyen Age a nos jours, ed. Francis Gingras (Quebec: Les
Presses de l'Universite Laval, 2006): 57-74. Naudet emphasizes how the merveilleux is
slowly replaced by the miraculous in these poems.

21 Micheline Combarieu du Gres, L'ideal humain et I'experience morale chez les heros
des chansons de geste: des origines a 1250 (Aix-en-Provence: Publications Universite de
Provence, 1979), 2:509. Combarieu du Gres dedicated a significant portion of her study
to the role of God in the chanson de geste, see 1:71-100, 2:509-44.

106
to the project of the epic which is meant to exalt the community of believers placed under

the protection of God, "[lj'epopee implique meme que la divinite, loin de demeurer

• • 22
cachee, s'y manifeste par miracles, voire par apparitions." These "ingredients

archiconnus dcs chansons de geste," as Verelst terms them, have been studied in depth in

numerous books and articles and their contributions to the genre (reinforcing its links to

hagiography, granting a divine seal of approval on the actions of the heroes, elevating the
9 "i
didactic meaning of the poems, etc.) have been well established. The effects of the

Christian merveilleux on the construction of the hero are somewhat limited as they tend to

reinforce what was already known, namely the powers and majesty of God. When God

works His miracles for the hero, it is precisely because the hero is already working for

God. Thus, as Daniel Poirion has stated in terms of the hero's strength for example,

"[cj'est le passage du surhumain au miraculeux qui caracterise souvent le merveilleux

epique" and this shift occurs within the boundaries of God's service. 24

The other merveilleux corresponds loosely to a blending of what Le Goff terms

the magicus and the mirabilis. This is a much more slippery category to grasp, as it

contains nearly everything that is out of the ordinary. Of course, what constitutes the

"ordinary" or the "normal" for any given historical period raises its own set of questions

22 Combarieu du Gres, L 'ideal humain, 2:510. See also Dickman, Le role du surnaturel,
9.

23Philippe Verelst, "L'art de Tolede ou le huitieme des arts liberaux: une approche du
merveilleux epique," in Aspects de I'epopee romane: mentalite, ideologies,
intertextualites, ed. Hans van Dijk and Willem Noomem (Groningen: Egbert Forsten,
1995), 3. Combarieu's L'ideal humain remains one of the most thorough studies of
religious thought in the epic.

24Daniel Poirion, Le merveilleux dans la litterature franqaise du Moyen Age (Paris:

Presses universitaires de France, 1982), 21.

107
for these notions are far from stable. In Christine Ferlampin-Acher's judicious

formulation, "[s]i Ton donne au merveilleux son sens le plus large, suggere par

l'etymologie du terme -le merveilleux serait ce qui etonne - un obstacle apparait: les

lectures etant relatives, ce qui etonne un lecteur moderne differe de ce qui etonne un

lecteur du Moyen Age, et ce qui surprend en 1200 differe de ce qui surprend en 1400." 25

When one evokes the merveilleux "[o]n se refere implicitement a un regard qui voit, a un

esprit qui juge, un coeur qui s'etonne." 26 Weapons, tents, castles, cities, herbs, gems,

deeds, to list but a few of the elements contained in the index of the merveilleux

established by Dickman, can all produce the required effect of surprise, of fear, of

wonder. 27 The amplitude of the category brings together everything from scientific

innovations to feminine beauty, from the solidity of a sword to the silkiness of a fabric. 28

More to the point, the merveilleux in medieval literature is often a byword evoking the

Celtic folklore of magical realms and agents (fairies, dwarfs, etc.). These are intimately

associated with Arthurian and other romances, with the vain et plaisant (and self-

25Christine Ferlampin-Acher, Fees, testes et luitons: croyances et merveilles dans les

romans franqais en prose (XHIe-XlVe siecles) (Paris: Presses de l'universite de Paris-
Sorbonne, 2002), 10.

26 Poirion, Le merveilleux, 4.

27For this dated though useful non-exhaustive list, see Dickman, Le role du surnaturel,
170-84. The notion of the effects produced by the supernatural or simply the non-
ordinary has of course been greatly reassessed since the publication of Francis Dubost's
thorough book on the fantastique in French medieval literature, in which the author offers
expanded discussions of the merveilleux, the fantastique, and notions of perception. Sec
Francis Dubost, Aspects fantastiques de la litterature medievale, XHeme-XIlIeme siecles:
I'Autre, I'Ailleurs, I'Autrefois (Geneva: Slatkine, 1991), 1:61-141.

28
For extended analysis of the linguistic and lexical polyvalence and uses of merveille,
although essentially limited to romances, the reader might consult Christine Ferlampin-
Acher, Merveilles et topiques merveilleuse, 14-47, as well as Jean-Rene Valette, La
Poetique du merveilleux, 31-102.

108
conscious literariness) with which the chanson de geste is supposed to have nothing to

do.

Beyond the divine supernatural, some merveilleux elements have always been

thought to belong naturally to the world of the chanson de geste: references to the general

appearance of the Saracens, their exotic and marvelous clothing, sumptuous residences,

and their nefarious knowledge of the dark arts are extremely common and can be found

to some degree in most chansons de geste dealing with the dramatized encounters of

Frankish fighters with their pagan foes. 29 Some more potent merveilleux elements

however have been said to be heterogeneous to the epic world, belonging rather to the

province of romance: magical objects, animals, places and characters such as fairies.

Thus, Jauss in his important article "Chanson de geste et roman courtois" discusses how

the magic belt introduced in Fierabras must quickly be thrown out the window (literally);

it is foreign to the chanson de geste and it would detract from the greatness of the hero

which is measured "selon les criteres de vraisemblance historique." 30 Following such

logic, magic and merveilleux elements not explicitly associated with the divine (such as

the sword/reliquary of Roland) would then not belong in the epic since their uses would

undermine the representation of the hero who must stand on his own (though obviously,

with God at his side). A similar verdict would have to be reached on the topic of faeries,

of Morgue, and Arthur. The underlying reason why the merveilleux disjoints by its

interference in the chanson de geste is that the merveilleux calls attention to its own

29
See Poirion, Le merveilleux, 20-27.

30Hans Robert Jauss, "Chanson de geste et roman courtois (analyse comparative du

Fierabras et du Bel Inconnu)," in Chanson de geste und hofischer Roman, Heidelberger
{Colloquium 30. Januar 1961 (Heidelberg: C. Winter Universitatsverlag, 1963), 69-70.

109
literariness and to its nature as a poetic invention outside the conventional referential

framework of the epic.

That said, Francis Suard, in his study of the Guillaume en prose, suggests that "il

n'existe aucune discordance de principe entre le projet epique et le recours au

merveilleux [...]. La volonte du poete etant en effet de rompre les liens avec le normal, il

trouve naturellement dans un monde qui echappe a l'humain un element decisif de

nouveaute." 31 Everything is fair game to heighten the stature of the hero, prescribed

generic differences notwithstanding. More generally, Dominique Boutet has remarked on

' , 32
the "tendance holistique de l'epopee" which "tend a integrer tout ce qui est a sa portec."

This integration, this "volonte de maitriser tout le champ du possible en matiere

litteraire," is obviously not without consequences for the literary representation of the

hero. 33 As Suard states, while in earlier chanson de geste the merveilleux can appear as

only "un auxiliaire du recit," in the "chansons tardives, il peut devenir un clement

dramatique ou esthetique essentiel." 34 This merveilleux conceived as a narrative

necessity is not only part of the writing practices of the late trouveres, but also a distinct

corollary of the conception of the late epic hero who is portrayed as being in need of

31Francois Suard, Guillaume d'Orange: etude du roman en prose (Paris: Honore

Champion, 1979), 585.

32
Dominique Boutet, La chanson de geste: forme et signification d'une ecriture au
Moyen Age (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1993), 206.

33 Idem.

34Francois Suard, "L'epopee fran^aise tardive (XIV e -XV e siecles)," in Etudes de

philologie romane et d'histoire litteraire offertes a Jules Horrent, eds. J.-M. d'Heur and
N. Cherubini (Liege: [s.n.], 1980), 452.

110
more help than his predecessors. Through unusual means, as we will see, the late

trouveres strive nonetheless toward generic orthodoxy.

Maugis: Magical Knight and Knightly Magician

The multifaceted Maugis d'Aigremont provides a good point from which to start

our exploration of the interactions between the late epic heroes and the merveilleux.

Maugis will be familiar to all those acquainted with Renaut de Montauban. As the cousin

of Renaud and son of Beuve d'Aigremont whose death was partly responsible for the

prolonged conflict between Charlemagne and the Quatre Fils Aymon, Maugis is his

kinsmen's perpetual helper and ally in their deadly strife against the emperor. But as

everyone knows, Maugis is not simply another knight fighting alongside the Quatre Fils.

He is also an enchanter versed in the art d'ingremance, and he does not hesitate to apply

his trade for the benefit of his relatives and to the detriment, and sometimes ridicule, of

the emperor. He is a thief who in Renaut de Montauban, steals at one time the emperor's

treasure, at another his crown, and then the emperor himself whom he kidnaps from his

camp. As such, he constitutes one of the prime examples of the larrons enchanteurs, of

the bons larrons in the epic genre.

This type of character is far from being heterogeneous or foreign to the epic

tradition, but is one of its stock-figures, as Pierre Verelst has extensively demonstrated. 35

The association of the two terms (larron and enchanteur) binds together magic and

trickery, and the comic value that can be derived from both. It also allows us to take

35Pierre Verelst has dedicated two studies to the character of the larron enchanteur and
to Maugis. See Pierre Verelst, "L'enchanteur d'epopee," Romanica Gandensia 16
(1976): 119-162, and "Le personnage de Maugis dans 'Renaut de Montauban'(versions
rimees traditionnelles)," Romanica Gandensia 18 (1981): 73-152.

Ill
stock more accurately of the character and of his powers, which are not as spectacular as

the term enchanteur leads us to think. Verelst identifies five powers associated with

these magicians: to cause people to fall asleep (or to keep them asleep), knowledge of

herbs and medicine, the ability to disguise oneself, enhanced escape capabilities, and to

unlock doors. 36 While out of the ordinary, these talents "se situent a la limite entre la

magie et les simple tours d'adresse." 37 We find versions of this character in numerous

epics from the late-twelfth century onward, from Foucher in Girart de Roussillon to

3X
Galopin in Elie de Saint-Gilles, where they all play the role of the faithful helper.

While their presence is not always necessary to narrative development, and they

frequently offer a dose of comic relief to poems sometimes heavy in drama, they are

rarely solely ornamental. 39

For Renaut de Montauban in particular, Verelst has shown in great detail how "il

est impossible de concevoir le Renaut sans ce personnage [Maugis], a moins de faire

subir a la chanson de tres profondes modifications." 40 It is in part because of Maugis'

constant assistance to his cousins that Charlemagne agrees to reconcile with the four

36 Verelst, "Le personnage de Maugis," 136-37.

37 Ibid., 137.

38
Galopin is not as well known magical figure as other epic characters such as Maugis,
Basin, or Auberon. The reader might consult B.F. Beardsmore, "The Two Auberons,"
Nottingham Medieval Studies 23 (1979): 23-30. For more on Elie de Saint-Gilles and the
influence on Galopin on the narrative, see Bernard Guidot,"Hero'isme et fantaisie
imaginative dans Elie de Saint-GillesOlifant 25, no. 1-2 (2006): 201-221

39For the narrative importance of the enchanteur in the chanson de geste, see Verelst,
"L'enchanteur d'epopee."

40Verelst, "Le personnage de Maugis," 134. See also Peter Noble, "Maugis and the Role
of Magic," in Aspects de I'epopee romane: mentalite, ideologies, intertextualites, eds.
Hans van Dijk and Willem Noomem (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1995), 74-75.

112
brothers. Conversely Maugis' removal from the scene is presented as a sine qua non

condition to the reconciliation of the cousins with the emperor. This second criterium has

been seen as a purposeful evacuation of the merveilleux from the epic. Charles's fierce

animosity toward Maugis has been interpreted by Valerie Naudet as an example of a

broader struggle between the force of the Law and the unruly Irrational; Charlemagne

cannot but want to purge the shifting Maugis from the feudal world. 41 Arguably, Maugis

both slowly disappears from the poem and is increasingly "christianized" as he

transforms from the facetious magician into a penitent hermit. 42 But it is also true that he

will make a remarkable come-back in a "prequel" to Renaut where he will play the part

of the hero of the poem in his own right and not simply that of a welcome, and essential,

helper of the Aymonides.

Maugis d'Aigremont, dated from either the first part of the thirteenth century

(according to Philippe Vernay) or the second part of the century (according to Verelst),

aims to answer a great many questions raised in Renaut de MontaubanWhere does

Renaud's marvelous horse Bayant come from? And his sword Froberge? And Maugis's

powers? The question of their origins (of their threatening origins as Dubost would say),

41 Naudet, "La merveille," 72-73.

42For the progressive Christianization of Maugis in Renaut de Montauban, see Jean

Subrenat, "Un enchanteur devant Dieu," in Miscellanea di Studi Romanzi offerta a
Giuliano Gasca Queirazza (Alessandria: Editio dell'Orso, 1988), 2:1007-22.

43 See Philippe Verelst, "Maugis a Tolede: Quelques aspects du personnage dans Maugis
d'Aigremontin Reading around the Epic: A Festschrift in Honour of Professor
Wolfgang van Emdem, eds. Marianne Ailes, Philip E. Bennet and Karen Pratt (London:
King's College London Medieval Studies, 1998), 70, n.3. If the Maugis cannot be
classified as part of the late epics, it is nonetheless worthwhile to consider it in the
present discussion as it programmatically announces many tendencies of later poems.
Indeed, these tendencies constitute one of the reasons why the poem was given a much
later date.

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left unsolved in Renaut de Montauban, is answered in Maugis d'Aigremont44 But while

Maugis d'Aigremont satisfies our curiosity on a number of points, it also raises its own

set of questions as to the nature of the epic hero. In his two studies of the character of

Maugis in Renaut, Verelst rightfully warns us that it would be a mistake to read Maugis

as merely a magician and to forget his knightly qualities. For Verelst, Maugis is above

all "un chevalier, au meme titre que le Fils Aymon" who demonstrates over and over

again his courage on the battlefield without relying on magic or tricks. 45 Far from being

an absolute otherworldly figure, he is "tres humain, 'normal,' avec ses qualites ct ses

defauts" as Jean Subrenat also points out. 46 And yet, with all his knightly prowess,

Maugis also represents the merveilleux wildcard of the great epic of revolt in which he

participates and always stands out. These two different facets of the character (his

profound humanity and his association with the merveilleux) will continue to be teased

out in Maugis in ways that reflect a late trouvere striving to retain a unified, larger-than-

life epic figure whilst extrapolating on the merveilleux element inherent to the character.

Indeed, in many ways Maugis is no different from most of the characters

discussed in the previous chapter, for the story of his birth and early life share a number

of similarities with the characters from Lion de Bourges, Tristan de Nanteuil, Parise la

duchesse, etc. Just after giving birth to twins, Maugis and Vivien, in a forest where the

court had gone for entertainment, the duchess d'Aigremont and her party are attacked. In

44Francis Dubost considers Bayart, and to a lesser extent Maugis, as representatives of

the fantastique in Renaut since its origins are shrouded in a dark, possibly infernal cloud.
See his Aspects fantastiques, 1:450-51.

45 Verelst, "Le personnage de Maugis," 135.

46 Subrenat, "Un enchanteur," 1006.

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the confusion that ensues, Vivien is stolen and will ultimately be sold to pagans who will

raise him. For his part, Maugis is kidnapped by the duchess's slave who has unclear, but

probably pecuniary motives. En route to Saracen Palermo, the slave is attacked by a lion

and a leopard. Reminiscent of the numerous animals that rescue, or in some cases

abduct, infants in both the chansons de geste and romances, the animals kill the slave and

each other while fighting for Maugis 47 The story of Maugis however diverges from that

of the other enfants trouves and/or voles in that instead of being found by a peasant or a

lord, pagan or Christian, he is discovered by a fairy named Oriande. Contrary to her

equivalents in other texts, Oriande immediately learns of the identity of Maugis but

decides to keep him anyway. This behavior seems to correspond, in part, to the archetype

of the jealous fairy anxious to keep the hero all to herself, as has been discussed by

Laurence Harf-Lancner. 48

Although Oriande is a fairy, she does not appear to possess a great amount of

magical power, nor for that matter does she dwell in Avalon or in a mysterious Faerie.

47 Verelst states that "[m]is a part des chevaux aux performances extraordinaires, il n'y a
guere d'animaux merveilleux dans les chansons de geste." "L'art de Tolede," 31. He
does not seem to take into account the plethora of animals protecting (and unusually here,
attempting to harm) infants, which we can find in Florent et Octavien, La Belle Helene
de Constantinople, Tristan de Nanteuil, Lion de Bourges, for example. Indeed, in Florent
et Octavien, the lion which initially protects the young Octavien will become his faithful
companion. For more on this extraordinary lion, see Francis Suard, "Octavien, le
nouveau Chevalier au lion: Evolution esthetique et semantique," Litterales 22 (1998): 65-
69. In Baudouin de Sebourc, we encounter a white lion that protects a bottle of the Holy
Blood, but its function is dissimilar from that of an "animal-companion" as it turns out
that the lion is, in fact, an angel. Baudouin de Sebourc is, in many cases, a poem where
the supernatural is inflected in a slightly different direction than in the poems analyzed
here. Verelst has treated these differences in his "Le merveilleux dans Baudouin de
Sebourc,' 1 '' Olifant 25, no. 1-2 (2006): 453-70.

48The jealous fairy type has to be placed under the heading of the "conte morganien."
See Laurence Harf-Lancner, Les fees au Moyen Age: Morgane et Melusine. La naissance
des fees (Paris: Honore Champion, 1984), 199-213.

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Her castle is located at Rocheflor, in a reconstructed Italian peninsula, later to be

besieged by Saracens. Maugis is therefore never completely removed from the world of

the chanson de geste. Moreover, Oriande does not simply bestow powers upon him,

rather he acquires them through careful study under the tutelage of Oriande's brother

Baudri who himself has studied at Toledo, reputed to be the city where one acquired I'art

d'ingremance, 49 Therefore, while Maugis is raised by a fee and educated by her brother

the magician, he is never inducted or transformed into something other than a man.

Neither does the status of "magic" fundamentally differ from learning; although it is true

that higher education does indeed work wonders in the poem. As Michel Stanesco

reminds us, the "opposition radicale entre science et magie etait impossible au Moyen

Age a cause de l'idee de cosmicite, a la fois configuration generale de l'univers et

categorie de pensee." 50 And yet, this learning and the powers gained by Maugis cannot

be separated from the more inexplicable forces of the universe, or Maugis simply be

reduced to someone who has been a diligent student. Presented with a slightly different

childhood than other epic heroes, he will be different in degree, if not in kind, from them.

His aspirations, however, will remain the same.

Once a young man, loved as well as dubbed by Oriande, Maugis is ready to begin

his adventures. The occasion is provided when he sees a mysterious smoke rising from

49Verelst has discussed at length the reputation of Toledo as the center for the study of
magic, which might come from the idea of Toledo as a center of knowledge, especially
the translations of Arab treatises on sciences and astronomy. See his "L'enchanteur
d'epopee," 152-54.

50 Michel Stanesco, "Nigromance et Universite: scolastique du merveilleux dans le roman

frangais du Moyen Age," in Milieux universitaires et mentalite urbaine au Moyen Age,
Colloque du Departement d 'etudes medievales de Paris-Sorhonne et de I'Universite de
Bonn, ed. Daniel Poirion (Paris: Presses de l'Universite de Paris-Sorbonne, 1987), 137.

116
an island off the coast. Curious, he inquires to Oriande who explains that this is the

island of Bocan where "la droite cheminee d'enfer est" and where a magical horse, our

old friend Bayard, dwells. 51 As one might expect, Maugis burns to possess the horse (and

even more so in leaning from Oriande that it has been engendered by a snake and a

dragon). But the island is well-guarded by dangerous and fantastic beasts and by a "mout

fiers deables" named Roenel who "hisdels est durement" (vv. 670-71). Shrugging away

the dangers of the endeavor, Maugis resolves to conquer the horse. The episode that

follows is instructive in guiding our reading of Maugis as a multifaceted chanson de geste

hero. The conquest of Bayard is structured in ways clearly evoking a mythical initiation:

Maugis will have to evade the devil Roenel, fight a serpent, and then a dragon before

taming Bayard. Each test will require different skills and highlight the two natures of

Maugis: fighter and magician. It is also during this episode that the first and only

mention is made of Oriande's powers. The fairy only informs him that the golden earring

given to him by his mother at his birth will protect him from physical harm, and we arc

left to wonder whether this power comes from her or from the object itself.

Faced with his first ordeal, Maugis calls on his talent as a trickster and enchanter,

his wit and learning, and it is no surprise that an element of humor pervades this initial

scene. Before setting off to the island of Brocan, Maugis disguises himself (one of the

talents listed by Verelst) as a devil. In an almost mock-epic tone, the Maugis poet

simultaneously heightens the drama (a ritualistic animal transformation) and the humor

(the disguise itselO of the character when Maugis "arms" himself for his journey.

Maugis prist meintenant, ne s'i est atargiez,

51Maugis d'Aigremont: chanson de geste, ed. Philippe Vernay (Berne: Editions Francke,
1980), v. 660.

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 Une pel d'ors locue que il ot escorcie:
.1. vestemenz Ten fu isnellement tailliez
Qui contreval li ferme jusques au col des piez.
Tote jor sejorna deci a l'anuitier.
Au matinet au jor quant il fu esclercie,
De con vestement fu Maugis apareilliez,
Et ot une visiere, bien fu aharneschiez;
D'un cuir de buef tane durement fu froiez;
Keues ot de gorpil environ atachiez,
Et de chascunne part ot .ii. cornes drechiez.
Quant en son vestement fu encloz et laciez,
Bien resemble deable que d'enfer soit chaciez.
Baudris li a ses mestres le croc de fer baillie.
O lui porta l'espee, si fist que ensegniez. (vv. 706-21)

The richness of the description might be simply elaborated for effect, but it also

highlights the two registers which Maugis negotiates: the cleverness of the larron as well

as the knightly qualities. Maugis's trick is effective. When Roenel sees his fellow devil

approaching the island, he throws him a rope, delighted to have an opportunity to

converse with a colleague. Maugis then uses his wits to convince Roenel that he is a

bona fide devil and gain his trust by telling him diabolical tall-tales.

Significantly, however, his tricks will not suffice to get past the devil, and Maugis

will have to rely both on his higher powers and on The Higher Power. Instead of relying

on a simple magic charm or act of sorcery, Maugis seems to be essentially performing an

exorcism. He "[l]e deable conjure tot bellement em baz / De Damedez de gloire et de

saint Nicolaz" for he "sot de la clergie assez plus qu'Ipocraz" (vv. 776-77). 52 Roenel

falls stricken, but not dead, and Maugis draws the four names of God around him so that

he cannot move; God is inscribed into the text by the enchanter himself. Thus, while the

confrontation between the false devil and the real one begins as a battle of wits (though

52 Verelst discusses the evocative importance of "Ipocraz" in "Maugis a Tolede," 71.

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Roenel shows a significant lack of them), with disguises and conjurations, it is quickly

encompassed within the boundaries of a divine project. From the city of the fairy to the

island of the monster, Maugis's "clergie" acquires a hint of the divine, which goes a long

way in neutralizing the mysterious dangers of the character and of his powers. The part

of the merveilleux imparted to him by his education is reframed as being supported and

nudged along by God even in the midst of a peculiarly individual adventure.

The second step in Maugis's initiatory obstacle course is a battle with a terrible

serpent, described with particularly dramatic flair. Having demonstrated his wits and

magical talents, Maugis will have to demonstrate courage and martial skill. At many

points, Maugis is in grave danger of losing the fight, falling to the ground and being

almost snatched between the jaws of the beast or burnt by the hellish fire which it

billows. Thrice does the poet repeat in a first hemistich, as a leitmotiv, "Se Maugis ne

fust vistes [...]" (vv. 831,840,850) he would have succumbed. Once Maugis believes

that he has defeated the monster, but approaching the corpse he finds the beast, "que le

mort mout aigrie" (v. 914), comes back to life. The serpent seizes the young hero

between its sharp claws and he is only saved from certain death by the beast's own

sudden demise. But Maugis's trials continue. In dying, the monster has swollen and is

now blocking the entrance of the grotto in which Maugis has sought refuge. As the sun

sets, the other, smaller, evil animals inhabiting the island come crawling out, 40,000 of

them "[qjant ils voient Maugis, si vont a lui courant" (v. 947). In a scene reminiscent of

a night of purification, Maugis is forced to find refuge on top of a rock where he,

significantly, prays, fasts and stays awake all night, waiting for God and the victorious

119
sun to liberate him from the nocturnal foes. When at last morning arrives, Maugis

joyfully finds the serpent deflated and the passage opened.

With the help of God, he has prevailed and can now approach Bayard, though the

steed is still guarded by a dragon that Maugis perfunctorily enchants. Having defeated

three hellish creatures and survived a night of mortal dangers, Maugis is now ready to re­

enter the world of men. This is symbolically marked by his removal (so as not to scarc

Bayard) of the bear-pelt, now blackened by the serpent's fire. His trials over, his virtues

proven, Maugis is gloriously (re)transformed into a perfect knight, worthy of possessing

the finest horse in the world.

Quant Maugis l'a veu [Bayart], prist soi a porpenser

Que ce qu'il est si lai le fet espoventer.
Le grant pel d'ors locue prist donques a oster
Et remest el bliant qu'il fist a or ouvrer.
N'avoit en tot le monde nul plus bel bacheler:
Les cheveux avoit blons, le vis vermeil et cler.
Qant le destrier le vit, prist soi aseurer;
Envers lui s'umelie et le prist a amer,
Devant lui s'agenoille et fet semblant d'ourer:
Ce est senefiance qu'a lui se velt donner. (vv. 1,032-41)

This scene not only serves to establish Maugis as a quasi-mythical hero, but also to

redeem the inquietante etrangete of Bayard post facto. The horse, a scion of devilish

beasts, now humbles itself in front of a warrior who has proven his valor and been

blessed by God in his endeavors. The expansion of the realm of the merveilleux (with

regard to Maugis and Bayard) coincides with its Christianization.

His first quest over, Maugis can return to Rocheflor to receive the joyful embrace

of his foster-mother/lover Oriande. But the city is besieged by an army of Saracens led

by Antenor. The battle presents Maugis with the chance to prove himself a proper

knight, in a proper epic setting. During this rather long episode, Maugis defeats Antenor

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even though the pagan king boasts enormous strength and size, and Maugis seizes the

sword Froberge, which he will give to Renaud at the end of the poem. After having

defeated Oriande's enemies, he returns to her. The fee greets him with praise and

unwittingly reveals that his great prowess demonstrates that Maugis is "estret de mout

riche barnage / Done onques ne fu dit laschete ne hontage" (vv. 1,716-17). Maugis, with

his characteristically sharp mind, latches onto these words and begins questioning

Oriande about his origins, a topic about which he had been remarkably incurious until

then. Oriande realizes her mistake and attempts to deflect Maugis' questions by

reminding him of the happiness he has enjoyed with her and the future repose and wealth

that await him if he stays. Maugis insists, and Oriande reveals his full lineage: he is the

son of Beuve d'Aigremont, nephew of Girart de Roussillon, of Aymes de Dordonne, of

Doon de Nanteuil, etc. Unmoved by her weeping and pleas, Maugis expresses in no

uncertain terms the desire shared by all the heroes who discover their identity: to see his

father, his mother, and his ancestral city of Aigremont. At this moment in the poem, we

witness an apparent rupture between the universe of the fee and that of the lineage; or, as

it could be said, between romance and chanson de geste. Maugis has proven himself and

has been formed in the world of love and purely individual endeavors, and he is now

ready to embark on the familiar mission of the recovery and/or restoration of the family.

The call of the community resounds, and the poet recognizes a shift in his text; after

describing Maugis' resolution to leave Oriande, the poet declares "Huimes porrez oi'r une

bone chanson: / Ce est la mestre estoire de Maugis le larron" (vv. 1,780-81). The

"mestre estoire" will be the epic quest, the reassembling of the family found in so many

late epic poems.

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 We are apparently at the crossroads of two materes or two different and well-

defined universes in a way that recalls Trachsler's emphasis on the ultimate

incompatibility of the two. Oriande promises Maugis a life of sweet, amorous quiet but

he opts for engaging in the feudal world. This picture is not however complete as it fails

to acknowledge how the "epic section" of Maugis d'Aigremont is enabled by and

dependent on the first part, which is itself recuperated within the epic framework by the

accomplishments of Maugis. Maugis continues to use his magical powers in specific

situations: transforming into a doe in order to escape the bedroom of Marsile's wife with

whom he had been sleeping, creating illusions during battles, etc. 53 Moreover, Oriande's

nephew, Espiet who is also a magician, periodically comes to his help before being

inexplicably killed by Bayart at the end of the poem. Maugis' tutelage at Rocheflor

proves invaluable for the reunification of his family. Tellingly, his most elaborate use of

magic takes place toward the end of the poem in a magical duel against the Saracen

enchanter Noirion, who serves Maugis' long-lost twin brother Vivien who had been

raised a Saracen and is now the emir of Monbranc. 54 This terrible display of occult

powers on both sides is an essential step toward Vivien's defeat and his ultimate

53 These powers are considered to belong to the enchanter of the second generation, who
possesses more extensive skills than the previous one in the typology established by
Verelst in his "L'enchanteur d'epopee,"136-38. In the episode of the transformation, it
is unclear if Maugis really becomes a doe or if it is only an illusion as it is said that "avis
fu" (v. 3,765) that he was a doe. An actual transformation would be most unusual for an
enchanter. See Verelst, "Maugis a Tolede," 79, n.l, and William K. Kibler, "Three Old
French Magicians: Maugis, Basin, and Auberon," in Romance Epic: Essays on a
Medieval Literary Genre, ed. Hans-Erich Keller (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute
Publications, 1987), 179. The epic enchanters stand thus farther apart from the more
threatening and destabilizing figure of the shape-shifting Merlin of the romance.

54A very short chanson de geste is also dedicated to this character and can be placed in
the general cyclical expansion of the Renaut, see Vivien de Monbranc: chanson de geste
du XIHe siecle, ed. Wolgang Van Emdem (Geneva: Droz, 1987).

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reintegration into the Christian faith and the lineage of Beuves. 55 The use of magic

(which is in Maugis explicitly linked to the world of the fee) is therefore inseparable from

the epic project.

Discussing Basin, the enchanter-hero of Jehan de Lanson and a close literary

relative of Maugis, Dominique Boutet wrote that he corresponds to "un type nouveau de

personnage [...] qui attire la sympathie par des qualites et des comportements plus

humains, plus detendus" and that such a character "est mieux fait pour le divertissement

que pour l'exaltation des sentiments." 56 While this assessment appears to be accurate

when we consider Basin or the Maugis of Renaut de Montauban, the Maugis of the

eponymous poem cuts a different figure. While he remains the jesting magician and

knight, Maugis le larron also receives the full literary treatment of the initiation of the

young man into the hero, with a dramatization of the intimate contact between deeds,

magic, and faith. Whether or not the Maugis of the eponymous poem would have

produced an "exaltation des sentiments" is impossible to assess. That being said, the

Maugis poet clearly sought to heighten the status of the larron enchanteur from the

useful and sometimes comical auxiliary in the Renaut to a full-fledged protagonist.

Maugis acts out his own quest in a unified and stereotypically epic fashion,

notwithstanding the greater role given to the merveilleux in the plot. The status of the

55Maugis also "converts" his aunt and cousin while in Spain later on, making Verelst jest
that "Maugis apparait comme une sorte de missionnaire." "Maugis a Tolede," 81.

56Dominique Boutet, Jehan de Lanson: Technique et esthetique litteraire de la chanson

de geste au XIHe siecle (Paris: Presses de l'Ecole normale superieure, 1988), 240.
Maugis and Bason are indeed close cousins, although Basin works, of course, for the
emperor while Maugis more often than not stands opposed to him. See Jehan de Lanson:
chanson de geste du XIHe siecle, ed. Jean Duplessis (Paris: Leopard d'Or, 2004).

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merveilleux in Maugis d'Aigremont is presented as separate from the main poem, the

"mestre estoire," of Maugis, but at the same time it appears fully integrated into the poem

as a whole and into the character of Maugis. There is something profoundly unsurprising

about the fact that the Maugis poet decided to give an education under the tutelage of a

fairy and her relatives to the young Maugis. He was, after all, already other, already

someone who partook of two natures. The supposed heterogeneity of Oriande, her

interference, makes etiological sense as far as Maugis is concerned. 57 Yet, the increase in

Maugis' importance and the augmentation of his powers (creating of illusions and so

forth) has to be put in relation with a correspondingly more mysterious and threatening

world: the devilish island, the great powers of the enchanter Noirion at the end, etc.

Maugis is explained by his opposite as much as anything else: the enchanteur must be

there on the Christian side as the diaholicus and magicus work hand in hand with the

Saracen Other. In this respect, Maugis, far from being "plus humain," is presented as the

epic hero par excellence, able to tackle the multifarious dangers presented in the world of

the chanson de geste\ familial de-unification, feudal warfare, confrontation with magic

and the Saracens. The merveilleux brings a measure of completeness, a supplement, to

the hero, and Maugis, raised by a fairy and protected by God, is perhaps better equipped

than any other to advance the epic cause.

Huon against Charlemagne: The Merveilleux as Social Remedy

57 Verelst, in his analysis of Maugis' travels in Spain and "learning" in Toledo says that
"[i]l fallait que Maugis passe par Tolede - ville sarrasine - pour y faire son
apprentissage, et il fallait aussi qu'il se plonge dans le monde pai'en afin de recuperer les
members de son lignage qui y avaient ete entraines malgre eux." "Maugis a Tolede," 82
(italics are his).

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 In Renaut de Montauban, Maugis stands as a hybrid figure: a knight and a

magician who partakes of both the world of the merveilleux and of the epic. Already

generically suspect, his story, as recounted in Maugis d'Aigremont with his Lancelot-like

apprenticeship under a fee, combined with his epic life, is an organic extrapolation of the

different facets of his character. Maugis is one of the few characters to unite so

completely the two universes and to stand so comfortably a cheval between the two. The

merveilleux usually does not intrude in the chanson de geste through the epic hero

himself. It appears rather under the guise of a helper from another world who develops a

relationship with the hero to whom he becomes an ancillary. 58 The most famous pairing

of a knight with an otherworldly helper is obviously Huon de Bordeaux's relationship

with the dwarf-king of Faerie Auberon. 59 From the very beginning of Huon de

Bordeaux, Auberon is inseparably linked to the hero.

Signour, or escoutez, que Dieu vous puist aider,

Et vous ores chanson qui moult fait a prisier,
Qui est de noble histoire c'on doit auctorisier,
De Huelin de Bourdialz le nobile guerrier,
Que tint toute Bourdelle et le noble heritier,
Et d'Auberon le roy, qui bien le volt aidier,
Ensi que vous orez s'on laixe lou noisier. 60

58Though, as Verelst points out, it has to be conceded that Maugis continues to receive
external help from other magicians. "L'enchanteur d'epopee," 158.

59 I consider Huon de Bordeaux a late epic (and perhaps the beginning of the late epic)
since the period of composition between 1260 and 1268 suggested by Marguerite Rossi is
now commonly accepted by most scholars. Rossi thus contradicts Pierre Ruelle who had
proposed a date from the early thirteenth century. That said, the Huon story was known in
some form in the early part of the century. See Marguerite Rossi, Huon de Bordeaux et
{'evolution du genre epique au Xllle siecle (Paris: Editions Honore Champion, 1975), 19-
32.

60Huon de Bordeaux: Chanson de geste du XIIf siecle, publiee d'apres le manuscrit de

Paris BNF fr. 22555 P, ed. and trans. William W. Kibler and Francois Suard (Paris:
Honore Champion, 2003), vv. 44-50.

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The epic parameters are set from the initial moments of presentation ("nobile guerrier,"

possession of the fief, etc.), but complementary to this is the presence of Auberon who

"Fuit filz Jullien Cesar qui tant fuit prous et saige, / Car en Morgue la Fee l'anjanrait san

servaige" (vv. 16-17). 6 ' The character of Auberon not only offers an apparent blending

of the matters of Britain and Rome, but also seems to be present in the poem to propose a

radical questioning of the feudal world through his essential role in Huon's adventures.

That is, Huon might be a hero who could not fulfill his destiny without the help and

support of a magical helper. The merveilleux is conceived from the very beginning as

intertwined in the epic matrix. The king of Faerie is portrayed neither as heterogeneous

nor interfering, but as a necessary complement; one cannot sing of Huon without singing

of Auberon.

The plot of Huon de Bordeaux is well-known. The young duke is convoked to

Charlemagne's court at the urging of traitors and is surprised on his way to court in an

ambush organized by the treacherous Amaury. During the skirmish, Huon kills

Charlemagne's son without knowing who he is, and Charlemagne's sorrow is immense

and his desire for revenge implacable. Even though Huon proves his innocence in a

judicial combat, he is forced into exile with seemingly impossible conditions set for his

61The blending of the matters of Britain and of Rome is only one of the many fascinating
aspects of Auberon. In the prologue to Huon de Bordeaux, the Roman d'Auberon, his
story is amplified to incorporate a host of biblical and classical characters as well as
many more fairies. See Le Roman d'Auberon: Prologue de Huon de Bordeaux, ed. Jean
Subrenat (Geneva: Librarie Droz, 1973). For a short analysis of this interesting
syncretism and Christianization of the world of the fairies, see Jean Subrenat,
"Merveilleux chretien et merveilleux paien [sic] dans le prologue d'Huon de Bordeaux,"
in Societe Rencesvals; Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference, Oxford 1970
(University of Salford, 1977).

126
return: he must go to the emir Gaudisse, deliver a message, kill one of his men, demand

tribute, kiss his daughter and bring back his mustache and four of his molars. Leaving

France, Huon travels to Orient (fantastically described) where he stumbles on the

kingdom of Faerie ruled by Auberon who eventually gives him a magical goblet and

horn to help him in the future. 62 But the power of these objects and the protection of

Auberon are always dependent on Huon's compliance with the fairy-king's injunctions,

namely not to lie and not to engage in pre-marital sex; rules that Huon inevitably

transgresses at a few points in the poem.

With the help of these objects, as well as a magical ring and hauberk acquired

along the way, Huon triumphs over Gaudisse, falls in love with his daughter

Esclarmonde, and finally makes his way back to France. However, Huon does so without

the protection of Auberon as he had disobeyed his order to remain chaste. 63 At court, the

traitors are unfortunately still plying their trade and rob Huon of the objects proving his

mission's fulfillment. Remaining inflexible, Charlemagne plans to execute him, and

Huon is only saved in extremis by Auberon's arrival at court with 100,000 men. Using

his supernatural powers, Auberon recovers the stolen items, has the traitors confess and

enables reconciliation between Charlemagne and Huon. But like all conflicts resolved

through a deus ex machina, the need for it underlines the impossibility of resolution

62The poet clearly took great delights in fashioning a more marvelous universe "over
there." See Calin, The Epic Quest: Studies in Four Old French chansons de geste
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), 188.

63With his usual verve, Gautier castigates the later part of the poem, and especially Huon
who "avec une brutalite bestiale [...] se precipite sur Esclarmonde et se livre sans
vergogne a ce vice abject contre lequel I'avait mis en garde la chastete d'Oberon et que
cet admirable protecteur lui avait severement interdit [...]." Les epopee frangaises,
1:584.

127
without it and the intractability of the problems. Everything remains the same, though it

is simultaneously, and magically, different.

Skeletal though it is, this summary highlights the main tensions of the work: the

degenerate Carolingian world where traitors swarmed and the character of Huon, whose

individual quest is designed to enable him to gain re-admittance into that world and

triumph over injustice. The interplay between the Carolingian feudal "here" and the

Oriental and merveilleux "there" corresponds also to what has been commonly called

(ever since Marguerite Rossi's exhaustive study of Huon de Bordeaux) the "partie

epique" and the "partie d'aventures." 64 Even though Rossi devotes numerous pages to

the merveilleux and the partie d'aventures, she tends to underplay its ideological impact

on the poem stating that it "apparait comme une partie importante, certes, mais

subordonnee au conflit epique qui se noue et se resoud dans le reste du poeme." 65

William Calin, on the other hand, confers much greater meaning to the "partie

d'aventures," and seeks to draw out the constitutive elements of the quest which

transforms the hero and enables him to rejoin the world through successive rebirths. 66

Despite differences in emphasis and interpretation, both critics agree that Auberon, the

64The "partie d'aventures" is not to be confined to the travels in Faerie, but to the entire
middle section of the poem in which Huon travels in the Orient, from Babylonia to
Jerusalem and which corresponds to the verses 2,522-8,982 of the Kibler's and Suard's
edition.

65 Rossi, Huon de Bordeaux, 461.

66 William Calin, The Epic Quest, especially 182-185. Calin teases out the symbolic
imagery of the partie d'aventures (forest, water, fire, etc.) and presents them as so many
initiatory moments associated with archetypes. Rossi strongly disagrees with the
approach, stating that "[i]l nous parait d'abord que la demarche de M. Calin consiste a
amalgamer, au nom de presupposes arbitraries, des donnees qui ne sont pas comparables
[...]." Huon de Bordeaux, 384.

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most important merveilleux element, plays an essential role in Huon's successful quest

and rehabilitation in the Carolingian order, "[u]ne donnee essentielle de la solution

finale" according to Rossi and "without a doubt the chief factor in Huon's success" in the

words of Calin. 67 The merveilleux Auberon is not only a pleasant, diverting addition to

the epic world in Huon de Bordeaux, he is the necessary factor for the re-establishment of

the proper order and the conclusion of the poem. Gautier, unwittingly perhaps, touched

precisely on the impossibility of (positive) narrative resolution without the help of

Auberon: "II est temps qu'Oberon paraisse; il est le Deus ex machina qui va mettre fin a

ce trop long roman, et ce ne sera pas le moindre de ses prodiges." 68 Symptom that

something has gone wrong in the Carolingian world, the generic interference is the only

way that the matter of France will be restored to its former self.

Although the addition of the merveilleux reveals a fracture of the Carolingian

universe, it does not, according to Rossi, question the unity of the epic character, nor does

it operate "comme dans le roman la liberation des forces individuelles presentes dans le

heros et inconnues de lui-meme." 69 Calin would disagree with this position as for him

the relationship between Huon and Auberon is fundamentally one of mentor and pupil,

and the itinerary of Huon a slow process of social reintegration, which may imply a

transformation. Without wishing to be accused of trying to menager la chevre et le chou,

I would take a position half-way between Rossi's stability and Calin's mutation. For

while we can conceive that there is a certain evolution on the part of Huon, he is neither

67 Rossi, Huon de Bordeaux, 461 and Calin, The Epic Quest, 205.

68 Gautier, Les epopees franqaises, 1:587.

69 Rossi, Huon de Bordeaux, 409.

129
creatcd by the merveilleux or Auberon nor randomly selected. Huon has already come

into his inheritance, the dukedom of Bordeaux, before the opening of the poem and is

already firmly established. The merveilleux draws the attention of the poem's audience to

the deficiencies of the feudal order which would deprive itself of one of its accomplished

members without the interventions of the supernatural. However, the notion that the hero

has to be supplemented for the accomplishments of his assigned tasks as well as the

undeniable didacticism of Auberon's relationship point toward a fragmented (moral and

epic) picture of the hero, no longer able to stand alone. 70 While the literary posterity of

Huon de Bordeaux has often been described in terms of it popularizing the merveilleux

and the fantastic Oriental description ("une admiration beate pour ce qui avait fait le

succes du cycle de H.B.," as Edmond-Rene Labande writes), the latent incompleteness of

the hero would also have a significant influence on later chansons de geste.7]

Fantastic Pedagogy: Tristan de Nanteuil and the Birth of the Hero

Indeed, in Tristan de Nanteuil, a work deeply indebted to Huon de Bordeaux, the

representation of the merveilleux acts not only as a supplement to and commentary on the

epic world, but as a transformative element in the hero's itinerary. 72 This expansion of

the narrative and symbolic import of the merveilleux in turn leads to a questioning of who

70It ought to be mention that even then, the resolution is short-lived as Huon ultimately
departs the Carolingian to greign over the Kingdom of Faerie.

71Edmond-Rene Labande, Etude sur Baudouin de Sebourc, chanson de geste: Legende

poetique de Baudouin II du Bourg, roi de Jerusalem (Paris: Librairie Droz, 1940), 107.

72The links are numerous, ranging from narrative sequences to the names of characters
and places. See Keith V. Sinclair, Tristan de Nanteuil: Thematic Infrastructure and
Literary Creation (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1983), 79-83, 90-1.

130
the hero of the fourteenth-century chanson de geste is, or who he would be without this

merveilleux. Huon, without Auberon, might have been condemned to roam the East for

an indeterminate period of time, but Tristan, without the fairy Gloriande, would not have

been able to even begin his journey.

In the previous chapter, we encountered Doon de Nanteuil, an enfant trouve and a

bastard who raised himself to greatness, at least in so far as his chivalric virtues were

concerned. As Alban Georges notes, the path of Doon constitutes but one of the possible

versions of childhood in Tristan de Nanteuil. Like his half-brother, Tristan is not raised

by his biological parents, for he is separated from them at sea. 74 Left without his mother

on a boat, Tristan is soon saved from the waves by a siren (a first salvation through the

merveilleux) who nurses him and brings him to shore. The siren is captured (and Tristan

rescued) by a fisherman who decides to sell her milk which is kept in jars. But a doe

sneaks into the house, drinks the milk and "devvint aussy grant c'un cheval de Cartaige; /

Et tant devint mauvaise, estrangloit gens a raige." 75 By the will of God, the verve spares

Tristan and brings him back to the forest where she will feed and protect him for eighteen

years. As Georges and Sinclair note, Tristan is one of the only enfants sauvages of the

73Alban Georges, Tristan de Nanteuil: Ecriture et imaginaire epiques au XIV siecle

(Paris: Honore Champion, 2006), 469.

74The departure from Nanteuil was motivated by the desire of Gui to save his mother
Aye d'Avignon and step-father Ganor who were besieged by the Saracens. The first
folios of the unique manuscript are missing, but we can reconstruct the first few scenes
through the allusions made later on. See Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 71.

75 Tristan de Nanteuil: chanson de geste inedite, ed. Keith V. Sinclair (Assen: Van
Gorcum & Comp., 1971), vv. 800-1. That the doe is systematically referred to by the
neologism cerve in the text instead of by biche might be explained by the desire to render
more "masculine" Tristan's caretaker/foster-mother. As it was pointed out in the
previous chapter, the Lion de Bourges poet admits jokingly that the lion is of course a
lioness since it nurses Lion, but lion makes for a better rhyme.

131
French epic tradition. 76 Tristan is thoroughly un-socialized because of his wild

upbringing, a detail that seems to bring him closer to the world of romance as "[i]l

semble que l'auteur se soit approprie un type de personnage bien connu du conte ou du

roman, celui du nice, ce heros en puissance qui ignore tout du monde et que son

inexperience rend stupide." 77 The nice will always initially be surprised by or afraid of

the world when he first encounters it. One only has to think of Perceval who marvels at

7X
the knights whom he mistakes for devils and then angels in Chretien's Perceval.

Tristan stands alone, uncultured, only saved from a thoroughly animal life by the grace of

an angel who descends upon him when he is seven (the age of reason) to grant him the

gifts of all the tongues in the world.

Language aside, Tristan remains completely ignorant of the world until the cerve

brings him a young Saracen princess, Blanchandine, who has fled her father's city lest

she be married to an old man. Needless to say, Tristan falls in love with the beautiful

maiden, and during their first night together he displays his ignorance of social norms by

raping her. She is, however, quick to forgive him, and the night's second amorous

76Sinclair reveals many parallels to the romance of Guillaume de Palerne. Thematic

Infrastructure, 20-24. Georges draws our attention to Valentin et Orson and Le Chevalier
au Cygne. Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 451-52.

77Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 467. In his discussion, Georges makes great
use of the classic on medieval wild men by Richard Bernheimer, Wild Men in the Middle
Ages: a Study in Art, Sentiment, and demonology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1952). Claude Roussel has treated the epic enfants sauvages in his "Tristan et Ourseau,
deux destins d'enfants sauvages," Cahiers Robinson 12 (2002): 87-108.

78Philippe Menard has devoted an informative article to the nice in which he discusses
some important differences between the treatment of the theme in romance and chanson
de geste (through a comparison of Aiol and Perceval). Menard does not include,
however, late epic in his discussion. See his "Le theme comique du 'nice' dans la
chanson de geste et le roman arthurien," Boletin de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras
de Barcelona 31 (1966): 177-193.

132
seance is performed with her consent. But it is not only Tristan's sexual desires that are

stirred by the arrival of Blanchandine, it is also the inkling of another world. Tristan has

never experienced or demonstrated any of the longings associated with young epic heroes

raised outside of the aristocracy. He is ignorant of women and clothes, of weapons and

war, and, more fundamentally, of his parents and religion. Thus his first meeting with

Blanchandine marks his ignorance, and the beginning of a process of reintegration.

Et lui dist: "Damoiseaulx, par amours, je vous prye

Que dire me veulles quelle est votre lygnye.
Crees vous en Mahon ou en sainte Marie ?
Je ne s?ay, dist Tristan, je n'ay nouvelle ouye
De croire nulle part fors en vous, doulce amye.
Ma creance est en vous, doucement m'y ottrye.
Oncques en mon vivant je n'eux coste vestye,
Maisj'en vourray avoir une belle jolye, [...]. (vv. 4580-5)

Love and civilization go hand in hand, as many critics have noted. 79 However, the

maiden will soon be taken away by her father's soldiers after having spent an idyllic, pre-

lapsian few months in the forest with Tristan (with whom she conceives a child, Raimon,

who will be an important protagonist of Parise la duchesse). 80 Yet despite the tempering

effect of Blanchandine, her slow socialization of Tristan, his views of the world remain

conditioned by his sylvan isolation and fornication. Even though he has proven his

virility, he is still far from being an up-and-coming young knight, and even further from

acknowledging the validity of the chivalric ethos.

79See Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 481-4, and Menard, "Le theme comique,"
43 among others. The civilizing effect of love is of course a theme of the fin' amors.
Danielle Regnier-Bohler also discusses the "sauvagerie" of Tristan in an article exploring
the civilizing meaning of food in her "Exil et retour: la nourriture des origines,"
Medievales 2, no.5 (1983): 67-80. Indeed, Tristan had engaged in a bit of cannibalism
during his childhood.
OA
For the cyclical relations of the petit cycle de Nanteuil and genealogy, see Georges,
Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 17-20, 25-29 and 63-68.

133
 Desperate at the loss of his beloved, Tristan leaves the forest in the hope of

recovering her. On his way to the city of Ermenie, he meets his half-brother Doon

(without knowing who he is), who has the same destination. Doon is courageous and

willful, as he has been since childhood, and intends to sell his sword and win glory in the

service of the sultan. Tristan, however, displays the most surprising characteristic one

could imagine of a future epic hero: cowardice. As he and Doon approach the city, their

characters diverge more and more; Doon's desire to fight increases with every step while

Tristan's resolve to recover his lover weakens as danger nears.

Compains, se dist Tristan, pour Dieu je vous en prie

Que nous n'aprouchons point la cite d'Ermenie
De cy jusques a tant qu'elle soit dessegie.
J'ain mielx estre en paix, et n'aye point d'amye,
Que maintenir debat et avoir seignorie ;
En guerre maintenir peut on perdre la vie. (vv. 6564-69)

Doon scolds him for his pusillanimity and, at Tristan's request, teaches him the rudiments

of weaponry so that he may be able to acquit himself honorably in the business of war.

But Tristan proves to be a rather poor pupil, both in the practice of arms and in the

assimilation of Doon's teachings about proper knightly behaviors. As Danielle Regnier-

Bohler insists, it is not ignorance that makes Tristan who he is, but "une forme de

demesure, une deraison primitive;" notwithstanding his "education providentielle" and

the "complement d'enseignement par ceux qu'il rencontre." 81 And yet, he remains a

coward. That being said, Tristan's "deraison primitive" is also the product of his own

rationalization as he develops his anti-chivalric principles, his "propres valeurs et sa

propre 'religion.'" 82

81 Regnier-Bohler, "Exil et retour," 76.

134
 In fact, it is clear from the passage above that whatever pleasure he has derived

from his commerce with Blanchandine, he is willing to sacrifice it for the safety of his

body, almost playing the common-sensical Sancho to Doon's intransigcntly chivalric

Quixote. Tristan's cowardly, fabliau-like nature does not abate even when he is finally

reunited with Blanchandine and enlists himself and Doon in the service of her father.

Continuing in a humorous vein, Tristan convinces Doon to impersonate him and take his

place in combat while he stays in the castle and beats his armor and his horse to fool the

sultan and Blanchandine. 83 The sultan Galafre, believing Tristan a valiant knight,

promises him his daughter, but learns of the deception performed by the brothers after

Doon-as-Tristan is wounded in battle while Tristan shows no sign of harm. Furious, the

sultan banishes Tristan who flees thinking that his brother has betrayed him to the sultan.

But while in his bitterness he blames Doon, he also admits, and even accepts, his own

shortcomings.

Quant par ma couardie je suis ainsy confus,

Et mon compains sy est a honneur maintenus,
Amye Blanchandine, or sera il vo drus,
Par qui vostre peres a este bien secourus.
Et e'est droit et raison qu'i soit bien secourus,
Car e'est le plus hardis que trouver pourroit nulz. (vv. 8042-45)

82 Idem. Georges demonstrates that Tristan's cowardice is linked to his "caractere

archetypal et mythique" (495) and presents the slow movement of the hero from
cowardice to violence as a marker between his savage state and his full and final entry
into civilization. Similarly, when presented later on by the faerie Gloriande with the
chance to win both her person and immense riches if he defends her against a snake,
Tristan will reply: "Dame, se dist Tristan, lesses en le parler./ Ne say sy bon tresor que sa
vie garder" (vv. 8,183-4). When he promises to help her again, and hesitating again, she
tells him that "preudons ne se doit nullement perjurer" and Tristan quickly replies "Sy
fait, s'a dit Tristan, pour sa vie sauver" (vv. 8,229-30).

8^
~ A well-known example of this trick comes from the fabliau Berangier au kmc cul, with
radically different implications obviously.

135
Tristan also acknowledges that he seems to possess all of the physical attributes needed to

be a knight, though strength and height do not make the man, and Tristan remains a

coward. Despite her best workmanship, Nature seems to have utterly failed.

Je suis et grans et fors, mais je suis homs perdus,

Car je n'oseroye estre en ung champ fervestus .
Ne ferir ung paien, s'il n'estoit abatus. (vv. 8,048-50)

Tristan's realistic assessment of his lack of merits is not sufficient to spark his courage

and make him embrace the life of a warrior. He meekly accepts his fate (that is, who he

is) and decides to retreat from the world, abandoning Blanchandine to a worthier man.

Du plus meschant du monde seroit mon corps vaincus,

Dont je pers belle dame. Je n'y doy penser plus;
Devant bonne persone ne doy estre apperceus. (vv. 8,051-53)

Tristan's initial contact with the world ends in complete failure. He has not only been

rejected by the world, but also seems to have lost what little he had gained in the forest

with Blanchandine. To repeated examples and exhortations of courage, he has opposed

his own irremediable cowardliness, which he almost developed as an ethos. Almost a

third of the way into the poem, the eponymous hero has yet to prove that he has any

worth at all.

It is during this state of dejection for Tristan (and major narrative impasse) that he

will come face to face with the merveilleux. While lamenting his inherent weakness,

Tristan encounters a beautiful maiden in the forest in a scene clearly reminiscent of the

mythological Celtic universe, the forest being the mysterious locus where mortals meet

supernatural forces. The maiden, identified as a fee named Gloriande by the poet from

the onset, asks Tristan to protect her against a snake that has been pursuing her and

promises him riches and her own person as rewards. Though fearful, Tristan reluctantly

136
agrees to help. He continues, however, to display his lack of courage and ignorance of

knightly behaviors, keeping the unsheathed sword in his hand even though the fee tells

him that it is unbecoming of a knight, "Ce n'est pas afferant / Que nul chevalier voit son

espee sachant, / S'il ne voit devant lui ses ennemis dolant" (vv. 8118-20). Tristan even

trembles with anxiety when the maiden softly sings, fearing that it may attract the

serpent. But the fee just goes on smiling at his fretting, and the poet is kind enough to tell

his reader why:

Quant la fee l'entant, sy en va soubzri'ant:

Bien sot la couardise qui estoit en l'enffant;
Mais ains qu'elle le lest, le fera sy vaillant
Et lui dira tel chose, par le mien essient,
Dont le franc damoiseaulx ara hardement grant
C'on en sara parler jusques en Oriant. (vv. 8,128-33)

Leaving little doubt as to the importance of the fee in the poem, this passage explicitly

states that it is through her that Tristan will become a hero; she will make him (le fera) a

hero and through her words he will acquire "hardement grant."

The /ee's agent in the transformation of Tristan is the serpent which he "battles"

three times. The first encounter ends in an utter, humiliating defeat which concludes

when "Tristan print a braire" (8159), thus reinforcing his non-heroic standing. The

second time, Tristan makes the serpent flee and tells the fee that it has been slain, but she

is no fool. Finally, before confronting the monster for a third time, shamed by the lady

and inspired by his love for her, Tristan swears to die or to prevail, forgetting his

cowardice. However, as Georges points out, "on ne sait ce qu'il serait advenu de ce

137
serment digne de Vivien [in the Chanson de Guillaume] sans la confirmation, la grace

84
que la fee lui accorde," for she "donne a Tristan le pouvoir d'etre fidele a son serment."

Amis, de mon pouvoir sy avant qu'il s'estant,

Vous en ottroy la grace et le don ensement;
85
Bien venes de lignage pour avoir hardement. (vv. 8330-2)

After receiving this gift of courage, or at the very least the promise that courage will

come to him, it seems that Tristan could hardly fail to defeat the serpent, a victory which

occurs in an arduous and stereotypical combat. But the fight itself is only an elaborate

mise-en-scene devised by the/ee to stage her granting of courage to Tristan, as Gloriande

herself is "specialisee dans le don du courage" in the late epic. 86 Indeed, once the young

man has defeated the monster, we are almost immediately informed that the stakes were

quite low. The serpent was, in fact, the luiton Malabron, one of the inhabitants of Faerie

who is first encountered in Huon de Bordeaux. As Sinclair mentions, "Gloriande's

relationship to Tristan is clearly that of a fay who instructs a hero." 87 Yet, unlike

Tristan's encounters with both Blanchandine and Doon who sought to instruct him in

love, war, and religion, and who failed equally in their tasks, very little pedagogy takes

place in these scenes with Gloriande. Apparently, Tristan had to be slipped the answers

to the conundrum of courage.

84 '
Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 516.

85We will remember that the fee Oriande uses a similar expression when commenting on
the past exploits of Maugis.

86See Sinclair, Thematic Infrastructure, 74-78, and Claude Roussel, "Tristan de Nanteuil
et le dragon," in Par les mots et les textes... Melanges de langue, de litterature et
d'histoire des sciences medievales offerts a Claude Thomasset, ed. Danielle Jacquart,
Daniele James-Raoul and Olivier Soutet (Paris: Presses de I'Universite Paris-Sorbonne,
2005), 646.

87
Sinclair, Thematic Infrastructure, 75.

138
 The combat between the hero and the shape-shifting luiton is not an unusual scene

in the chanson de geste as Francis Suard has well documented in his study of the early-

thirteenth century La Bataille Loquifer.u In the fourteenth-century Dieudonne de

Hongrie, the eponymous character has to fight the transmuted dwarf Maufune before

89
being allowed to enter the castle of the fairy. A similar scene occurs in Lion de Bourges.

In both fourteenth-century remaniements of the Chevalerie Ogier, the Dane has to fight a

shape-shifting dwarf before entering Faerie. 90 In the late thirteenth-century Gaufrey, the

Raynouart-esque Robastre, Gaufrey's companion, must fight the transfigured Malabron

in a castle before Malabron reveals to him that he is his father. In all of these eases, the

88Francois Suard, "La Bataille Loquifer et la pratique de l'intertextualite au debut du

XIHe siecle," in Actes du VHIe Congres International de la Societe Rencesvals (1981):
497-501. Not all versions of the Bataille Loquifer include the Avalonian episode, see
Trachsler, Disjointures-Conjointures, 182-184. The version of La Bataille Loquifer
containing the Avalonian episode can be consulted in the Barnett edition of the
manuscript B.N.F. 1448.

89Dieudonne de Hongrie remains only available in a partial edition in an unpublished

dissertation. See Denis Collomp, 'Dieudonne de Hongrie,' dit 'Le Roman de Charles le
Chauve:' edition critique des folios 49 a 87 (Lille 3: ANRT, 1989), two microfiches. A
detailed summary and analysis of the poem can be found in Louis-Ferdinand Flutre,
"Dieudonne de Hongrie, chanson de geste du XlVe siecle (alias Roman de Charles le
Chauve)," Zeitschrift fur romanische Philologie 68 (1952): 321-400. Marguerite Rossi
has analyzed the functional similarities of the epic helper in her "Les elements
merveilleux dans Dieudonne de Hongrie," Senefiance 25 (1988): 433-48.

90These two versions of Ogier are unedited. The decasyllable version, dated from around
1310, has graciously been made available in a still unpublished version by Professor
Trond Kruke Salberg and can be consulted at his website at
http://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/people/aca/trondks/index.html. The alexandrine
version, dated from the 1330s, is contained in three manuscripts, the most commonly
mentioned being B. N. F., Arsenal 2985. Both texts are discussed and summarized in
Knud Togeby, Ogier le Danois dans les litteratures europeennes (Copenhagen:
Munksgaard, 1969), 134-55. Emmanuelle Poulain-Gautret has recently written a
monograph on the posterity of Ogier. See her La tradition litteraire d'Ogier le Danois
apres le XHIe siecle: permanence et renouvellement du genre epique medieval (Paris:
Honore Champion, 2005). For the Avalonian episode in these two texts more
specifically, see Harf-Lancner, Les fees au Moyen Age, 278-88.

139
battle is an "epreuve qualifiante" which "consacre [the hero's] valeur." 91 "Consacrer" is

the operating term in all these examples. The Avalonian episode in La Bataille Loquifer,

in which Raynouart fights the monstrous Chapalu at the instigation of king Arthur, occurs

toward the end of the poem, after he has demonstrated over and over again his strength;

the same is true in the fourteenth-century Ogier poems. This is not to say that these

episodes do not grant an additional dimension to the hero, but they primarily consecrate

qualities already recognized, "le recours a la feerie a pour signification premiere de

manifester ou de confirmer [...] une valeur par ailleurs reconnue."92 The merveilleux

might serve to heighten the status of the hero, to mark him as both an epic warrior and a

man worthy of being inducted into an otherworldly pantheon (Raynouart meets not only

Arthur, Morgue and Yvain in Avalon, but even Roland), yet it does not alter who he

previously was. 93 Indeed, Emmanuelle Poulain-Gautret indicates how some of the humor

and pathos in the fourteenth-century Ogier poems comes from the fact that Ogier has not

91 Suard, "La Bataille Loquifer500.

92 Idem. Carlos F. Clamote Carreto also highlights the complementarity of the Avalonian
and epic universes in this poem in his "Rainouart au pays des fees. Interchangeabilite des
personnages et dialogisme dans La Bataille Loquifer," in Fagonner son personnage au
Moyen Age, ed. Chantal Connochie-Bourgne (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de
I'universite de Provence, 2007). The links between the Avalonian episode and traditional
epic genealogical concerns over fatherhood and lineage are explored in Sara Strum-
Maddox and Donald Maddox, "Renoart in Avalon: Generic Shift in the Bataille
Loquiferin Shifts and Transpositions in Medieval Narrative: a Festschrift for Dr.
Elspeth Kennedy, ed. Penny Eley (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1994).

93Carreto mentions how "[c]ontrairement a ce qu'affirmait Jauss, des personnages

comme Yvain et Roland peuvent done bel et bien se deplacer d'un genre a l'autre et
cohabiter dans un meme espace fictionnel." "Rainouart au pays des fees," 106. See also
Strum-Maddox, "Renoart in Avalon," 14.

140
assimilated the courtliness of Faerie.94 These travels in Faerie do not so much alter the

hero's identity as add another layer to the reader's appreciation of the hero.

The supplement affects the literary reception of the hero, but it does not transform

him. The most patent example of this phenomenon, of this consecration/elevation

through the merveilleux, can be seen in Le Batard de Bouillon. In this poem, the

victorious army of Baudouin of Jerusalem, returning from its conquest of Mecca,

stumbles upon Faerie. During their sojourn, Baudouin and his knights encounter Arthur

and Morgue. They also see a mysterious horn which will only release sound if blown by

the "flour du monde, passant de hardement / Tout le monde a .j. jour" and a rose which

can only be plucked by the same. 95 In both cases, the prize goes to Hugues de Tabarie

and not, as might have been expected, to the king of Jerusalem. Robert F. Cook, in his

edition of the text, initially described the episode, this mini-Arthurian novel, as having

been added "a titre purement gratuit." 96 A few years later, however, he amended his

views and demonstrated that the episode fulfilled the important function of elevating the

secondary character of Hugues de Tabarie so as to explain the important role he plays as

the tutor of Saladin in the final poem of the Crusade-cycle, a Saladin which is only

known through a later prose version. 97 Rather than playing with a historical Carolingian

figure to elevate Hugues (whose education of Saladin is a way of lessening the blow of

94 Poulain-Gautret, La tradition litteraire, 331.

95Le Batard de Bouillon: chanson de geste, ed. Robert Francis Cook (Geneva: Droz,
1972), vv. 3439-40.

96 Le Batard de Bouillon, xxxiii.

97Robert F. Cook, "The Arthurian Interlude in the Batard de Bouillon," in Conjunctures:

Medieval Studies in Honor of Douglas Kelly, ed. Keith Busby and Norris J. Lacy
(Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994), 92.

141
the Saracen victory by making Saladin "French"), "[t]he undying Arthur and the

immortal fairies [...] appear, taking on a validating role that, while unexpected, is

naturally theirs." 98

We find a playful variation on this aspect of the merveilleux in a poem where the

intertextual markers of another world, Arthur and Morgue, are not explicitly mentioned.

In the thirteenth-century Gaufrey, the hero acquires a companion named Robastre who

possesses enormous strength, is over sixty-years old, and who has, like Raynouart, been a

servant of a lord before taking up arms." Robastre will prove his valor in combat and his

intransigent devotion to the Christian faith on numerous occasions during the poem. He

will ultimately become king of Hungary after achieving a final victory over the evil

Saracen Gloriant (the source of much of the external pressures on the Carolingian world

in this particular poem). But while Raynouart's elevation to lordship in the cycle de

Guillaume was justified, in part, by his royal Saracen origins, Robastre does not appear to

be issued of the same stock. Even though Robastre demonstrates his prowess in battle, it

is uncertain how he (a parentless man who has been a servant) could acquire a kingship.

98 Ibid., 94. See also Trachsler, Disjointures-Conjointures, 141-144. We find also in this
poem an interesting clue as to the assimilation and convergence of the matters of Britain
and France. After his victory over the Saracens of Mecca, King Baudouin of Jerusalem
explains to them the tenets of the Christian faith. He lists the expected elements: original
sin, advent of Jesus Christ, his life and teaching, etc. When he describes the Crucifixion,
he incorporates the Grail story as recounted in the Arthurian tradition: "Nobles fu li hanas
et fais de bon ouvrier: / Che est li Sains Greaus qui tant fait a prisier; / Perchevaus
racompli, ens ou tamp cha arrier" (vv. 2491-93).

99 David M. Dougherty has described the numerous connections between the two
characters, including their strength, unusual origins, and the humor they add to the poems
in his "Robastre, descendant of Rainouart," in Romance Studies in Memory of Edward
Billings Ham, ed. Urban Tigner Holmes (Hayward: California State College Publications,
1967), 31-38. We could also link Robastre to the character of the vavasseur Gautier in
Gaydon whose contributions to the humor of the poem have been analyzed by Calin, The
Epic Quest, 119-171.

142
Moreover, his age and behavior do not quite qualify him to play the role of the jeune

premier, and he remains a heteroclite figure.

Thankfully, his origins are more illustrious than they may appear. He is the son of

the luiton Malabron who offers his son the chance to prove himself a hero (in the vein of

Huon de Bordeaux and Raynouart) in an "initiation" scene set in a castle out of an

Arthurian novel, "au castel perilleus." 100 There, Robastre fights a constantly shifting

Malabron before finally defeating him and learning the story of his origins. 101 More

significant for our present argument, however, is Malabron's prediction of his son's

kingship, "Roi seres de Sulie et du pais aussi; / Ileuques demourrez et maint jour et maint

di" (176). From this point on, the poem is slightly reoriented toward Robastre, the hero

whose steps we are following and who is blessed, like Huon, by the protection of an est re

fae which marks him as worthy of holding kingship. 102 There is an unmistakable amount

of playfulness in having Robastre, who describes himself as a "veillart tout canu et

barbe" (174) and undergoes an ordeal usually reserved for young men, but it seems to

have been the best way the poet found to justify a charretier becoming king. Robastre

does not become younger nor does he lose his single-minded devotion to Gaufrey. The

change brought about by the merveilleux does not take place at the level of the character

100Gaufrey: chanson de geste publiee pour la premiere fois d'apres le manuscrit unique
de Montpellier, ed. F. Guessard and P. Chabaille (Paris: F. Vieweg, 1859), 167.

101It should be noted that Malabron insists repeatedly on the divine origins of his powers
and Robastre insists even more on making sure that Malabron is not in fact a devil, thus
contributing to the recuperation of the mysterious within a Christian framework. Verelst
discusses the literary posterity of Malabron after Huon de Bordeaux in his "L'enchanteur
d'epopee," 133.

102Like Auberon, Malabron will come to Robastre's help throughout the poem and
withdraw his protection when Robastre breaks the rules established.

143
himself, but rather at the level of the narrative structure that situates Robastre on the path

to kingship. The addition of the merveilleux contributes to the reader's perception of

Hugues de Tabarie or Robastre without positing a transformation. But in Robastre's

case, the heterogeneity of the merveilleux is doubled as Robastre himself is an unusual

figure (though much like Raynouart). The merveilleux thus fully functions as a

rectification of the epic order by recuperating and relocating all characters within the

proper parameters.

It is also important to add a caveat regarding gifts from a fairy (such as courage

and strength) and their narrative functions, the more to highlight the originality of Tristan

de Nanteuil and its differences from other poems. In Lion de Bourges, for example, the

baby Lion, left alone in the forest, is visited by four fairies (including Oriande and

Morgue) who grant him invincibility, courage, and promises of wealth and kingdom. We

find a similar scene in many late epics, such as in the thirteenth-century Enfances Renter

or the fifteenth-century Galien le restore. In all these cases, however, the fairies' gifts

fulfill no narrative role. They announce what will be, but do not enact it. The

merveilleux, in these cases, appears to conform literally to a possible definition that

Dubost gives of merveille as a signpost, "[g]lose ou annonce, merveille est un terme que

le recit place en surimpression a sa propre matiere pour en signaler l'etrangetc." 103 This

is played out in Galien le restore where the fairies reassure the sorrowful Jacqueline

about the future of her son by granting him gifts (courage, a crown). This reassurance of

the mother by the fairies can also be seen in the cycle of Garin de Monglane, about which

Guidot says, "Flore avait bien besoin elle aussi de reconfort (dans Enfances Garin). Les

103 Dubost, Aspects fantastiques, 1: 64.

144
fees le lui apportent en venant fixer le destin de Garin." 104 While the scene may have a

dubious proleptic element to it, I would concur with Harf-Lancner's conclusion that these

fairies, in Lion de Bourges and other late epics, are these "fees marraines relevant d'un

merveilleux ornamental, sans role dramatique, sans fonction symbolique." 105 They might

orient the reader's expectations, but they do not program the narrative in the way that

Gloriande does in granting Tristan courage and in prescribing the hero's duties. 106

In Tristan de Nanteuil on the other hand, the merveilleux enacts a complete

rupture in both the narrative and the life of Tristan who "semble avoir totalement change

104 Guidot, Recherches sur la chanson de geste, 623.

105Harf-Lancner, La naissance des fees, 34, see also 92. Anita Guerreau-Jalabert
considers this kind of scene, in thirteenth-century romances however, as "neutral."
Describing the foreknowledge and the gifts given by fairies, she states that "cette capacite
s'exprime de maniere 'neutre' dans beaucoup de recits; dans un certain nombre de textes
du XHIe, elle se monnaye en predictions enoncees a la naissance d'un enfant et meme en
'dons' qui sont une maniere de conferer des pouvoirs extraordinaires ou de predeterminer
la destinee de l'enfant, du reste generalement conforme a son etat social de futur
chevalier." "Fees et chevalerie," in Miracles, prodiges et merveilleux au Moyen Age:
XXVe Congres de la Societe des Historiens Medievistes de I'Enseignement Superieur
Public (Orleans.juin 1994) (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1995), 139.

106 It is perhaps this criterion above any others that allows us to discount the fourteenth-
centuiy Brun de la Montaigne from the ranks of the late epic even though it is also
written in the rhymed laisses of the chanson de geste. In this poem, the fairies do not
randomly appear in the forest, but are actively sought by Brun's father who desires to
expose his child in the forest so that he can receive gifts from them. But more
importantly, one of the fairies, feeling insulted by her companions who have given Brun
all the best gifts, curses him to be unhappy in love for many years. This unhappiness will
condition the greater part of the adventures of Brun, or at least so we can surmise, as the
poem is incomplete in the only manuscript. See Brun de la Montaigne: roman
d'aventure puhlie pour la premiere fois, d'apres le manuscrit unique de Paris, ed. Paul
Meyer (Paris: Librairie de Firmin Didot et C ie , 1875). Christine Ferlampin-Acher offers
an interesting discussion of the generic ambiguities of the poem, mentioning how it is not
"une chanson de geste matinee de romanesque: c'est un roman arthurien qui cherche a
conjuguer l'usure des annees et des reecritures en puissant a la vaillance premiere de la
chanson de geste, sans cependant y parvenir." "Brun de la Montaigne: Une chanson de
matiere enforcie (v. 2744)?" in Le romanesque aux XlVe et XVe siecles, eds. Danielle
Bohler and Helene Basso (Bordeaux: Presses universitaires de Bordeaux, 2009), 29.

145
de personalite." 107 The goodwill and affection of Gloriande for Tristan do not so much

elevate him above other heroes as fashion him into one. Georges has shown in great

detail how the extreme importance of Tristan's initiation compared to the epreuves of

other epic heroes who are touched by the merveilleux reveals the indebtedness of the

Tristan poet to more fundamental mythological and/or folkloric structures in a more

striking fashion than in other poems. 108 As Suard also points out, the merveilleux and the

folkloric are intimately linked together in the late epic. 109 It is undeniable that the

depiction of the hero as an enfant sauvage (a folkloric as well as mythical convention)

allows for the representation of the acquisition of valor in a more dramatic fashion than

in other poems in which protagonists never question the chivalric ethos. But this very

acquisition suggests a certain "unnaturalness" of the chivalric code and behavior. By

having to learn them, by being forced to learn them, Tristan typifies their erosion and the

necessity that they be reinforced from outside.

While primordial myths of initiation undeniably underline the structure of the

poem, I question the effect that this granting of courage instead of its simple

consecration has on the conception of the late epic hero. The addition of the merveilleux

in Tristan de Nanteuil points towards a gap, a lack in the epic matiere itself, which cannot

be filled by a more traditional chivalric education. Doon and Blanchandine had, after all,

earlier attempted to socialize Tristan and to introduce him to the world, with resounding

failures. Tristan had returned to the forest where he would have stayed had it not been for

107 Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 515.

108 Ibid., 518 for his conclusions and 534 for the importance of the oniric.

109 Suard, "L'epopee fran^aise ," 452.

146
the apparition of Gloriande coming to the rescue of not only Tristan but by extension of

the whole lineage of Nanteuil.

As such, the paradox of the overbearing interference of the merveilleux in Tristan

de Nanteuil is that while it suggests an element of lack in the epic fabric, since the hero

cannot become who he is meant to become without it, it is also what allows the epic quest

and the world to be restored to order. After Tristan defeats the serpent, Gloriande at last

introduces herself to him as a fee and confirms the gifts of valor, courage and near

invincibility at which she had hinted. The only caveat is that these gifts will be void if

Tristan is not baptized for "il n'est nul qui puist avoir ceur de proudon, / S'il n'cst bon

chrestiens sans mauvaise achoison" (vv. 8421-22). And more importantly for the epic

narrative (of Tristan) to get finally under way, Gloriande reveals to Tristan his own name

(for he had until then only called himself Sauvaige) and that he is the son of the great lord

Gui de Nanteuil. As in Maugis d'Aigremont, the revelation of lineage brings epic

concerns into the romance universe of the fee. "Connaissant la gloire du lignage auquel il

appartient, le heros prend alors conscience de sa nature privilegiee et se voit investi d'une

mission: retrouver ses parents et reconquerir son fief," as Georges succinctly puts it. 110

Tristan, however, does not formulate his own project; it is rather the fee Gloriande who

programmatically articulates the goals of the chanson de geste.

Enffes, s'a dit la fee, car entens mon plaider.

Encore l'aras tu, tu t'en peux bien vanter,
Car il te faudra de prison delivrer.
Tu as trop plus a ffere que cuides asses,
Car il te convendra ton pere delivrer,
Et la mere ton pere hors de prison getter,
Et ta mere ensement de paiens aquitter,
Et le baron de ta taye hors de prison oster,

110 Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 517-8.

147
 Et deux oncles que as qui moult font a loer;
Tous ceulx te convendra ensemble rassembler.
II convient qu'ainsy soit, ne le peus deveer,
Car tu en as le don c'on ne te peut grever,
Et de moy et de Dieu qui tout a a sauver. (vv. 8472-84)

The fee, by formulating the mission and (along with God it should be noted) giving

Tristan the tools to fulfill it, enables the hero to piece back together the shattered

fragments of the epic world, namely his extended family.

In her investigation of generic interference in the poem, Jane H.M. Taylor

severely judges Tristan de Nanteuil, especially its use of the merveilleux. For this

scholar, "Tristan is 'endowed' by Gloriande with his individual and chivalric identity

[...] and I choose the word 'endow' carefully here, because it conveys precisely the way

in which Tristan is figured as powerless, and aimless." 111 This corresponds to my

assessment. But Taylor maintains that the poet retains this aimlessness even after

Gloriande's "endowment" and the revelation of the name, and that the poem continues to

lack a telos. It is indisputable that the road to Nanteuil, even after the episode in Faerie,

is absurdly tortuous, as it tends to be in the late epic, as poems of tens of thousands of

lines can hardly progress straightforwardly. Yet, even though Tristan will take many

wrong turns, and the ultimate goal of reunification of the family and recovery of the fief

is constantly receding (or even fails in a certain measure as Tristan is killed by his bastard

son), it nonetheless remains the overarching concern of the poem and ambition of

Tristan. 112 The multiplication of the sequences of success/failure, freedom/imprisonment,

111Jane H. M. Taylor, "The Lure of the Hybrid: Tristan de Nanteuil, chanson de geste
arthurienne?" Arthurian Literature 18 (2001): 86.

148
victory/defeat in the remaining 12,000 lines or so of the poem does not so much betray a

narrative lacking a telos as a technique of composition. The possibility of reunification

and peace always shimmers in the distance.

Faerie and the Carolingian world are never, however, the same thing, and

Trachsler is correct in highlighting their fundamental irreducibility. In Tristan de

Nanteuil, this difference is marked all the more strongly after Tristan's victory over

Malabron. Once fully in Faerie, Tristan is presented (like Hugues de Tabarie) with a

horn which can only be blown by the most valiant knight in the world, in an episode

which Sinclair has dubbed the "Joie de la Cort" in reference to Erec et Enide. ui In

Chretien's novel, however, the Joie de la Cort was again a final consecration of Erec's

worth; here it is only a beginning. The horn will, moreover, grant invincibility to the

person carrying it. Tristan, remembering his past cowardice, is doubtful, but goes along

with the task anyway, and to his great surprise, a sound echoes from the horn. This

produces in Arthur and his companions a joy without bounds and all partake in revelry,

dancing and caroling. In the midst of these romance-like delights (which might very well

threaten the continuation of the poem by keeping the hero occupied with pleasure instead

of war), another fee, Morgue herself, takes Tristan aside and informs him that he has

already been eight days in the fairy world." 4 Playing a beneficial part, Morgue reminds

I 12
Trachsler also recalls this fact and attributes it to the transgressions of Tristan, "La
vaste 'famille' de Tristan par contre, fruit d'autant de transgressions erotiques, ne peut
etre reunie, le pere etant aneanti par le fils." Disjointures-Conjointures, 141.

113 Sinclair, Thematic Infrastructure," 82-85.

114
The lengthening of time in Faerie is a commonplace. In the Batard de Bouillon,
Baudouin and his men spend five years there; similarly Lion in Lion de Bourges will
waste six years in a magical castle. In the two fourteenth-century versions of Ogier, the

149
Tristan that time is fleeting, and while she offers him the choice to stay in Faerie if he

wants to, she offers no objections when he reiterates his wish to leave and be reunited

with his parents and his (future) wife Blanchandine." 5 Similarly, Gloriande who has

"seduced" him into her world willfully bids him farewell, with the stern warning not to

forget that unless he is baptized, the effect of the magic horn will be naught. 1 ' 6 Claude

Roussel draws our attention to the importance of the Christian sanction on the network of

literary interferences in the poem, "au-dela de la triple reference ainsi esquissee au ton du

fabliau [his cowardliness], a l'ideologie courtoise [fighing for Gloriande's love] et au

cadre du roman Breton [Faerie], la tradition epique reprend ses droits, puisque cette

transmutation du pleutre en meilleur chevalier du monde ne s'avere effective que

lorsqu'elle est completee par l'onction du bapteme."' 17 Although Tristan will have to

hero spends about 200 years with Morgue in Faerie only to come back around the time of
Philippe Augustus and to realize that all those he knew have been dead for decades and
that books have been written about his own adventures.

115 Poirion mentions how "Morgue perd son aspect inquietant et parfois cruel: elle
devient aussi un fonctionnaire divin" in later texts. Le merveilleux, 102. For Morgue as
an epic fairy, see Jeanne Wathelet-Willem, "La fee Morgain dans la chanson de geste,"
Cahiers de Civilisation Medievale 13 (1970): 209-219. Fairies who see their love
rejected rarely seem to take offense in the late epic. Something similar occurs in
Dieudonne de Hongrie wherein the fairy Oriande offers her love to Dieudonne but
despite an initial reluctance, is ultimately untroubled when he departs her castle to go in
pursuit of his true love Supplante and to help his parents. With the help of the gifts and
knowledge he has been given by the fairy, Dieudonne will, like Tristan, reassemble his
family and restore a modicum of peace to the feudal world, here associated with king
Dagobert.

116We will recall that Auberon had also imposed conditions om Huon with regard to the
efficacy of the magical objects he had given him. The hero almost always receives
magical objects in Avalon, although not Raynouart in La Bataille Loquifer. Georges
discusses the importance of the gifts given and received in the poem and in the late epic
in general. Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 524-32.

117 Roussel, "Tristan de Nanteuil et le dragon," 648.

150
 return to the world in order to become a proper Christian epic knight, Faerie is not in

opposition to the Carolingian universe, but rather in a continuous spectrum contributing

to the formation of the hero who is then endowed with the qualities needed to partake in

the feudal universe. It is a tortuous path to become an epic hero, but the hero is

nonetheless created.

Tristan will, typically, immediately forget Gloriande's injunctions to be baptized,

fighting the first knights he encounters, one of whom is his father. For this transgression,

a Black Knight (an envoy of Gloriande) appears and punishes him by beating him in

combat and taking the magic horn away. It is only after much suffering, and being finally

baptized, that Tristan will regain the protection of Faerie, the kingdom which had made

him a knight in the first place. 118 While Morgue, Arthur and Gloriande evoke and

furthermore inhabit a world different from the one in which the drama of the chanson de

geste takes place, it is nonetheless hasty to perceive a necessary opposition or divergence

between the two, as Trachsler does. The education received in and the code of conduct

imposed by Faerie are underwritten by the pope who baptized Tristan and defended by

the Black Knight who insures that Tristan upholds them. All these elements and actors

therefore converge towards the fulfillment of Tristan's epic quest. At the same time, the

real tension in Tristan de Nanteuil is not between Faerie and the epic world, but the

conundrum posited by the inability of the young hero, Tristan, to be reintegrated in his

world without the support of the supernatural. While Auberon's help was required in

|1^
See Trachsler, Disjointures-Conjointures, 137; Roussel, "Tristan de Nanteuil et le
dragon," 648. The injunction not to do something almost always calls for the
transgression of the order. Huon is a case in point in the chanson de geste, but one also
thinks of Marie de France's Lanval, or even Chretien's Yvain where the hero does not go
back to his wife at the appointed time.

151
Huon de Bordeaux because of a tear in the fabric of the epic system, the merveilleux in

Tristan de Nanteuil "repaired" the hero himself. As Marie-Frantpoise Notz suggests, the

poem "trahit, au moyen du miracle et du merveilleux ce qu'il y a de fictif dans une

certaine idee de la nature, comme le lieu perdu et desire d'une impossible integrite." 119

Accumulating fantastic traits, the poet unwittingly draws attention to the fragmentation of

the world and of the man he aims to glorify.

The Miraculous Edge: Deficiencies and Insufficiencies in Lion de

Bourges

Gloriande is thus a declination of the Auberon figure not only by her powers, but

by her essential narrative function; "[p]ar son influence, elle ne peut etre comparce qu'a

Auberon [...]." I2 ° The role of the merveilleux adjudant who helps the hero to uphold the

epic order and his own Christian virtue can thus be performed by different types of

otherworldly characters: a century-old beautiful dwarf out of Germanic folklore, or a

loving fairy with roots in the Celtic universe exploited by romances and tales. 121 Lion de

Bourges is also the beneficiary of the protection and support of such a helper whose

nature and origins force us to expand and reconsider further the demarcation between the

merveilleux and the Christian merveilleux: the God-sent White Knight. As William W.

Kibler remarks in his introduction to the poem, "mutatis mutandi, il [Auberon] joue dans

119Marie-Frangoise Notz, "Nature et surnaturel dans Tristan de Nanteuilin Aspects de

I'epopee romane: mentalite, ideologies, intertextualites, eds. Hans van Dijk and Willem
Noomen (Groningen: E. Forsten, 1995), 82.

120 Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 518.

121
Georges emphasizes the feminine aspect of Gloriande and love in Tristan's initiation.
Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 518.

152
Huon le meme role que joue le Blanc Chevalier dans notre poeme." 122 I will explore and

highlight the differences between the two as the White Knight cannot be assimilated to

Faerie, but it will be important to remember that the functional and thematic similarities

between the White Knight and Auberon (and by analogy, Gloriande as well) are part,

ultimately, of the same pattern of supplementation of the hero.

In the preceding chapter, we left Lion as he was being mocked for his poor

accoutrement by an innkeeper in the city of Monlusant where a tournament was to be

held. During this conversation, the innkeeper highlights what poor fate befalls an

impoverished knight: The body of such a person has been rotting away outside for the

past ten years because the knight did not have money to pay his bill to the innkeeper who

won't let him be buried until he has received what is owned him. Outraged at this

unchristian treatment of a fellow knight, Lion spontaneously offers the content of his

purse so that a proper sepulcher can be accorded to the knight. Humbled by Lion's

magnanimity, the innkeeper apologizes and offers to put him up. The innkeeper's

generosity will also be helped along by the fact that the princess Florantine, who had in

the meantime met Lion and fallen in love with him, lets the innkeeper know that she will

take care of Lion's bills after the latter contracts significant expenses at the inn. The day

of the tournament finally arrives, and a mysterious knight clad in white offers his service

to Lion in exchange for an equal share of the winning. Lion accepts and through his aid,

he conquers the princess and the kingdom. When the White Knight comes to collect his

share, Lion is more than willing to honor the agreement, offering the whole kingdom to

his newfound friend as long as the princess whom he loves is excluded from the deal.

122Lion de Bourges: poeme epique du XIV siecle, eds. William W. Kibler, Jean-Louis G.
Picherit and Thelma S. Fenster (Geneva: Librarie Droz, 1980), 1: lxxxvii.

153
Having received proofs of Lion's loyalty, the white stranger reveals to him that he is in

fact the ghost of the dead knight whose burial he had provided. Grateful, the spirit of the

knight had requested from God to be allowed to show Lion his thankfulness by helping

him prevail in the tournament. Hearing this, Lion falls on his knees and the White Knight

promises him succor whenever it shall be needed.

The reader here recognizes the main elements of the folkloric motif of the

Grateful Dead found in the Aarne-Thompson repertory of folktales as tale 506-508.

Danielle Regnier-Bohler has shown how the motif gained great popularity from the

thirteenth century onward in both lay and ecclesiastical literature in France. 123 As she

points out, the motif is closely associated with monetary matters: the dead knight's

profligacy leads to pecuniary scarcity which is then redeemed by the largesse of the

knight who pays for the burial, which in turn leads to his temporary lack of funds: "[s]i le

heros du roman devient le repondant du mort endette, le mort est a son tour, en reponse,

le garant du heros." 124 In most versions of the tale, the living knight's spending is repaid

by the Grateful Dead with a horse and weapons to fight in the tournament. In light of the

"realistic" worries over money and its depletion present in Lion de Bourges (discussed in

123Danielle Regnier-Bohler, "La Largesse du mort et l'ethique chevaleresque: le motif du

mort reconnaissant dans les fictions medievales du Xllle au XVe siecle," in Reception et
identification du conte depuis le Moyen Age, eds. Michel Zink and Xavier Ravier
(Toulouse: Universite de Toulouse-Le Mirail, 1987), 52-63. For a broader overview of
the popularity of the folktale across geography and time, see the dated, but still useful
study by G.H. Gerould, The Grateful Dead. The History of a Folk Story (London:
Publications of the Folklore Society, 1908).

124
Danielle Regnier-Bohler, "Beances de la terre et du temps: la dette et le pacte dans le
motif du Mort reconnaissant au Moyen Age," L'Homme 29, no. 111/112 (Jul.- Dec.,
1989): 163.

154
our first chapter), the presence of the tale seems to be a particularly well-chosen folkloric

addition to this particular poem. 125

Yet, the assistance of the Grateful Dead is not immediately monetary, but

military. This is not altogether exceptional as the same phenomenon occurs in the

thirteenth-century romance Richart li biaus, a poem sharing many thematic similarities

with Lion de Bourges. m In this poem, Richart is also an abandoned child who leaves his

foster-parents to go in search of his family. After many adventures (including the

reunification of the family), Richard finally comes to a tournament where love and

kingdom are at play and is assisted by a Grateful Dead similarly transformed into a White

Knight. However, if the points of overlap between the two poems cannot be denied, we

have to consider the capital difference of the episode's location in the narrative. In

Richart li biaus, the Grateful Dead story comes at the very end of the poem. Once the

tournament is won, Richard is installed on a throne and his adventures come to a halt to

be followed, arguably, by peace and prosperity. The episode is a consecration of the

valor and virtues demonstrated by Richard throughout the text (including his inordinate

yet admirable generosity), and a literal and literary crowning of his achievements—a

final test which he passes successfully.

125 We will recall that Lion had depleted his foster-father's small fortune by living like a
great lord and that Baudouin had contracted debts with everybody he knew until the
complete exhaustion of his resources. Lion had been forced to abandon his chivalric
lifestyle and to sell his most prized possessions. The desire to go the tournament in
Montlusant, though prompted by the love of the princess, was also an economic decision.

126Regnier-Bohler, "La Largesse," 62-64, Lion de Bourges, xcii-xcvi. See also Richars li
biaus, roman du XIHe siecle, ed. Anthony J. Holden (Paris: Honore Champion, 1983), 9-
10.

155
 In Lion de Bourges on the other hand, the tale arrives almost as a prelude to the

main adventures of the young hero, before anything has really been accomplished at all,

if we exclude his generosity toward the unburied knight. The appearance of the White

Knight ought therefore to be considered as an election and a designation of future heroic

worth rather than as a consecration of a proven or manifest value. Furthermore, it

quickly becomes apparent that the White Knight is the only way to distinguish Lion from

the other participant in the tournament, which opens thus:

Sur lez champz sont venus li quaitre filz au roy,

Et pues li quaitre due qu'oblier je ne doy ;
Li douze conte apres, qui sont de bel aroy.
Et li avantureux se tiennent en lour ploy,
Lion et son verlet qui ne furent que doy ;
Mais saichiez que per tant se poront conter trois,
Car Dieu d'un compaingnon li fist ce jour l'otroy
Qui Hi aidait a ffaire ou tornoy tel esploy
Qu'ains hons ne fist tant d'arme pues la Nouvelle Loy. (vv. 6,609-17)

The great nobility of Lion's fellow jousters clearly serves to enhance the portrayal of

Lion's own courage, as it is no glory to prevail against inferiors. From a certain

perspective, it is possible to read this passage as a variation on and reference to the

monetary texture of the Grateful Dead tale highlighted by Regnier-Bohler. Through the

money paid to bury the dead, Lion literally augments his party from two to three, "mais

saichiez que per tant se poront conter trois." The appearance of the White Knight could

thus repair an anomaly of the polis in which a brave knight who has neither money nor

power to assemble a troop of fighters. The divine favor (personified in the White Knight)

thus enables the success of Lion.

Yet such a reading remains unsatisfactory, as the presence of the White Knight on

the battlefield is presented less as a re-establishment of a disrupted equilibrium than as a

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necessary supplement for victory, for the performance of feats of arms not seen "pues la

Nouvelle Loy." Without the White Knight, Lion would be but one among the crowd of

combatants, nothing more than an "avantureux" among many. This is made explicit

during the narration of the tournament.

Et li tornoy fuit grant qui durait longuement;

Li conte et li prince s'i provent richement,
Car si Lion fuit preux, aussi furent yaulz cent
Qui d'avoir la pucelle avoient grant tallant.
Maix Lion ot d'aye le Perre omnipotant,
Car destines li fuit d'avoir grant herdement,
Et li Blans Chevalier li aidait bonnement;
Cilz le saulvait asses d'avoir painne et torment, (vv. 7,183-90)

There is an unmistakable equation between Lion and the other knights, and the

transformation of the Grateful Dead from provider of weapons to military acolyte appears

all the more significant. Within the context of the role of provider, the weapons and

horse simply enable the superiority latent in the knight to come to light. Here, however,

this superiority (the heroic, victorious status) is explicitly tied to the added strength the

White Knight provides. Lion's exceptionalism does not entirely come from within, for it

is also a matter of outside supernatural influence which grants him an extra edge. That

the help provided is said to emanate from God should not make us forget the context in

which it arrives, and for what purpose. Lion is neither in a judicial combat where justice

is at play, nor is he battling the Infidels. What is at stake is the hand of the princess; all

the participants are those "qui d'avoir la pucelle avoient grant tallant," arguably just as

much as Lion.

This slight diminution of the standing of the hero (or of the hero standing alone)

in this late chanson de geste can be perceived more clearly when we compare it to

another military helper sent by God in a much earlier poem. In the twelfth-century

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Chanson d'Aspremont, the young Roland is initiated into the knightly life by none other

than Saint Georges during a battle against the Saracens. As the forces of Charlemagne are

about to face off with a powerful Saracen army, three mysterious riders come down from

a hill to join the French leaders. There is an initial and slightly humorous confusion as to

who these men are. But it is soon revealed that their leader is none other than Saint

Georges himself who has come to offer his and God's support. The saintly dragon-slayer

takes special notice of Roland who understands the significance of the attention given to

him.

Si com Rollans permit le mesagier

Que Dex dou ciel li ot fait anvoier
Chrest'ientez tenir et essaucier,
Et li messages l'aime tant et tient chier
Qui le voloit mener et anseignier,
Et que seinz Jorges li deigna otroier
Le premier cop a l'estor comencier,
Se sa proece ne puet si derraisnier
Que nus a lui ne se puist apoier
Done se puet il mauvessement proisier:
1 27
Jamais nus hons nel doit am paix laissier.

The Christian merveilleux, the miraculous, fulfills an initiatory function, the "[mjiracle

I
comme 'initiation', inauguration de quelque chose" as Alain Labbe has said. " But

while this supernatural surplus is directed toward Roland, it is also inscribed within the

context of Christian teleology as it allows for the victory over the Saracens. It is a

designation of who the hero will be and an assignation of the task to perform. Roland

does not become a better knight through the intercession of Saint Georges, his deeds are

127
Aspremont: chanson de geste du XIf' siecle, ed. Francis Suard (Paris: Honore
Champion, 2008), vv. 8 and 158-68.

128Alain Labbe, "Le miracle comme cloture du recit epique: Girart de Roussillon et
Renaut de Montanban," PRIS-MA 14/2, no. 28, Clore le recit: recherches sur le
denouement romanesque (Jul.- Dec. 1998): 136.

158
only placed more firmly within a communal framework in which he has to gain his

standing. The White Knight, on the other hand, enables the individual victory of Lion in

a tournament where he has individual aspirations, the achievement of his "grans

hardement." 129

At the same time, the help provided by the White Knight cannot be separated

from the idea that the merveilleux seems to restore something that has more generally

gone amiss in the social world. I have shown in the preceding chapter how anxiety about

the recognition of worth based on deeds and not wealth was a constant concern and

subject of discourse in Lion de Bourges. The same continues after the end of the

tournament, where Lion appears to have prevailed but when all are still awaiting the

decision of king Henry of Sicily as to who will win the prize. Some of those in

attendance agree that whatever was done during the tournament, the prize will go to a

high noble. The duke of Calabria, Tristan's main antagonist, declares jealously: "Car

ceu seroit pitiet et povre destinee / Se la pucelle estoit a tel homme donnee" (vv. 7,258-

9). In the same vein, but with dejected bitterness, the "chevalier baneret qui sont d'une

partie" (v. 7,357) comment that Florantine will surely give her love to a king or a duke as

"Honnour de povre gens est poc auctorisie" (v. 7,363).

As we know, the princess has already given her heart to Lion, as well as her

credit. The final judgment must, however, come from King Henry. The king recognizes

that Lion "ne soit pas de trez aulte lignie" (v. 7,404), but cannot fail to acknowledge that

129That being said, I do not wish to diminish the "crusading spirit" that pervades the
poem. There will be many battles, further along, against the Saracens, and Lion and his
sons will be deeply involved in fighting for Christendom. But the reader still has a long
way to go before reaching these passages, and the White Knight will keep serving Lion
against his Christian enemies as well.

159
he has performed best during the tournament and that it would be a great injustice if the

prize were not accorded to him. The king correctly assesses Lion's worth as a combatant,

but this worth is conditioned by (or predicated on) the presence of the supernatural helper

who allows Lion to become the winner. Whenever Henry refers to Lion, the knight and

the White Knight are not dissociated.

Et li roy dit: "Ma fille, ne vous mantirait mie,

A celui me tanrait se Dieu me benoye
Que le Blan Chevalier avoit en son aye. (vv. 7,399-01)

And again, later on he urges his daughter to choose Lion as her husband, "Cilz au Blan

Chevalier" (v. 7,457). The accomplishments of Lion are explicitly tied to the help of the

White Knight, in a tangible way which extends beyond God's protection. Lion's standing

as a hero depends on his association with the White Knight. This is illustrated by a

passage later in the poem which takes place after Lion has temporarily lost the protection

of the White Knight because of a sin of fornication. The duke of Calabria's forces are

fighting against those of King Henry, and they are winning. Arriving upon the scene,

Lion decides to join the battle and devises a trick which, he hopes, will give him the

advantage: He has one of his men dress in white "Pour esmaier le due et sa chevaillerie"

(11,304). Implicitly, Lion attempts to remediate the weak position in which he finds

himself and supplement his standing by the addition of the merveilleux. The disguised

knight is, unsurprisingly, killed by Lion's enemies and the hero finds himself again in a

bad patch; the cunning of man is not up to the task.

Once Lion has recovered the help of the White Knight through his contrition for

his sins, he will continue to benefit from his interventions throughout the poem and so

will his children. Although the White Knight is sent by God, it would be a mistake to

160
overlook the fact that he plays almost the same role as Auberon in Huon de Bordeaux, as

highlighted by Kibler, and Gloriande in Tristan de Nanteuil. 130 The functional

similarities are indeed striking. The White Knight promises his help to Lion in the future

on the condition that he remain a true and loyal knight; a promise and an implicit threat

also made by Auberon. Tristan is also attacked and then scolded by a Black Knight sent

by Gloriande when he fails to meet his obligations to be baptized, and he is also later on

punished after forcibly bedding his cousin. 131 And as when Huon fails to obey Auberon's

command not to lie with the Saracen princess Esclarmonde until she has been baptized,

consequently forefeiting the protection of the Faerie king, so does Lion forgo the

protection of the White Knight when he betrays Florantine. It is only through sufferings

and trials that Lion will regain the protection of the White Knight. The didactic function

of the supernatural (which itself points in the direction of a lack which needs be

remedied) is strengthened in Lion de Bourges because of the stature of the White Knight

as God's direct envoy. But the higher standing of the White Knight in Lion also offers a

comment on the (ultimately) divine role performed by the merveilleux supporters.

As Calin has noted, the didactic function of Auberon and the help he provides

Huon evoke the idea that he serves as "father figure or father surrogate." 132 At the

beginning of Huon de Bordeaux, the young duke is, after all, fatherless and this condition

is partly blamed for Charlemagne's perceived offense. But the fatherlessness of Huon is

130 Lion de Bourges, 1: lxxxviii.

131The didactic elements in late epic poems are often related to sexual matters (Auberon
punishes Huon for sleeping with Esclarmonde, Tristan for raping his cousin, etc.). See
Trachsler, Conjointures-Disjointures, 154, and Rossi, "Les elements merveilleux," 444.

132 Calin, The Epic Quest, 209.

161
also emphasized by the violent demesure of Charlemagne who, as king, should have

embodied notions of justice and of order, exercising the rights and duties of the Father.

Therefore, Auberon fulfills this role and fills this gap left by both the death of the father

and the inability of Charlemagne to be a good king. In Lion de Bourges, the White

Knight comes to play a similar role. This function is heavily underlined in the poem as

Lion, while not fatherless, has an insufficient father who has not been able to preserve

and protect himself, his family, and his land. The task is Lion's. Moreover, Lion also

encounters numerous "father figures" who all, ultimately, disappoint. His foster-father

Baudouin had raised him, but had been unable to either teach him restraint or support his

lifestyle. His future father-in-law King Henry of Sicily is a worthy man, but he is old and

the reason why the tournament is held is precisely so he can pass his kingly duties to a

younger man. Fatherhood and royalty (two pillars of the epic feudal order) are crumbling

on every side, and the White Knight alone (the supernatural) is able to support Lion and

provide the necessary fatherly advices. Like Auberon, the White Knight assists the hero

in his progression toward lordship.

There is not, however, a perfect equation between the White Knight and Faerie in

the poem; in fact, the author presents the two in conflict later on in the poem. As

Trachsler reminds us, toward the beginning of the second third of the poem, Lion is

riding through the Ardennes forest when he finds himself in a situation very similar to

that of Tristan, Raynouart in the Bataille Loquifer, Robastre in Gaufrey or Dieudonne in

Dieudonne de Hongrie. 133 He encounters a transfigured luiton who will turn out to be

Auberon himself - though in this text he is a subordinate of the fairy Morgue - whom

133 Trachsler, Disjointures-Conjointures, 144

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Lion will have to defeat. Having accomplished this, Lion is introduced, or even inducted,

into Faerie where he will spend six years in complete forgetfulness of his epic duties.

Que ne li souvenoit dou riche roy Charlon

Que Bourge li tolloit a tort et san raison,
Et se ne li souvient en sa condicion
De sa noble moullier qui Florantine ot nom
Qui estoir en Pallerne en grant tribulacion,
Et ot perdut son filz qu'Ollivier ot a nom. (vv. 20,940-45)

The Avalonian episode is a roadblock to the accomplishment of the cpic quest of

reuniting the family, once again, and of recovering the fief which has been usurped by

Charlemagne and his minions. It is only through the appearance of the White Knight that

Lion returns to the right epic road.

La fuit mis en telz ploi, per le corpz saint Symon,

Que jai ne fuit issus, si comme lisant trouvon,
Se Dieu n'eust estez, qui souffrit passion,
Et le Blanc Chevalier, que Dieu ot fait pardon,
Qui vint per le gres Dieu deden la mansion
Et se vint amoustrer devant l'anffan Lion. (vv. 20,955-60)

Trachsler is correct in pointing out that the existence in Faerie is a waste of epic time in

this case, "[e]n Faerie, la chevalerie et l'amour n'ont aucun but en dehors d'eux-memes,

les annees s'ecoulent comme des secondes et les chevaliers qui se trouvent au royaume

d'Arthur et de Morgue oublient tout ce qui se passe dans le monde exterieur." 134 There

thus seems to be an incompatibility between the two materes, and Lion has to choose

between the two worlds after having received his chivalric consecration from Arthur and

Morgue. This Avalonian episode in Lion de Bourges does muddle somewhat the question

of the positive role of the merveilleux in the late epic as it seems to explicitly detract from

134 Ibid., 145.

163
as well as endanger the restoration of the feudal and familial order which is Lion's

mission.

At the same time, Faerie does not completely undermine the epic quest, as it

eventually brings a welcome supplement to Lion later on in the poem. After Florantine's

death, Lion retires to a hermitage in order to atone for his sins, in a seeming continuation

of the religious, didactic impetus of the poem personified by the miraculous White

Knight. Lion takes vows never to come back to the world and retires to a forest where

the White Knight provides him a marine celeste. One day, however, this God-sent helper

informs Lion that he will have to leave for a few weeks to assist Lion's sons who are in

grave troubles. Interestingly, they need the help of the White Knight to resolve troubles

caused by men dabbling within the merveilleux, and usurping its consecrating function.

Earlier on in the poem, Lion had returned to the ancestral city of Bourges, and in order to

prove that he was indeed the true heir of Herpin of Bourges, he had to blow the horn

which will only respond to the true lord of the city. After his departure, however, traitors

quickly regained control of the city and, fearing that either Lion or his sons would present

themselves again to recover their rights, they hid the artifact and replaced it with a copy.

When Lion's son arrives to claim the lordship of Bourges, he fails the test of the horn and

is thrown in jail. His tragedy underlines the hero's (as well as the poem's) reliance on the

merveilleux and the dangers of its absence. 135 Hearing this, Lion immediately decides to

leave his hermitage despite his vow and the White Knight's stern warning that his leaving

135We find numerous horns in the late epic (from Huon de Bordeaux onward), and they
can fulfill many functions: calling up troops, protecting one's from harm, designating the
best knight in the world as in Tristan de Nanteuil and Le Batard de Bouillon. Alban
points out how "[c]et objet est seduisant par sa riche symbolique: synthese entre l'epique
rolandien et le merveilleux breton Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 525.

164
will not be looked upon kindly by God. Lion, however, insists that saving his son takes

precedence over his soul's salvation, and he decides to trust himself to God's future

mercy. The epic hero's moniage rarely lasts long.

Presumably wearing his hermit's clothes, Lion makes his way to Bourges in

company of the White Knight. Suddenly, a fairy comes upon his path with a horse and

weapons, "Sire Lion, dit elle, je vous ait apportee / Ces arme si androit par teille destine"

(vv. 30,714-15). The only condition stipulated is that Lion has to return to this very place

one year hence to come with her "en la terre faiee / Very le boin roy Artus et Morgue

l'asemee" (vv. 30,722-23). Of course, Lion agrees and is delighted to don, once more,

the tools of his knightly trade which are essential for the fight ahead of him. It is

noteworthy that the fairies are not only performing their usual function of giving arms or

marvelous objects to the hero, but also that this role is traditionally fulfilled by the

Grateful Dead. While Trachsler is right to point out that Lion is obliged to choose

between the "world" and Faerie in the end, it is a decision that is ultimately made for

epic purposes as the fees provide support at the crucial moment.136 Their gifts remake

Lion into a knight, and the return to Faerie is accomplished only once the city and the

family have been, once more, saved. Lion departs, saying to his sons, "pues que je vous

ai getez hor de prison" (v. 34,053). Thus, the inhabitants of the fairy world and the

dangers of the merveilleux (as diagnosed earlier on in the poem and condemned by the

miraculous agent as a distraction in the epic quest) become the enabler of the completion

136Trachsler, Disjointures-Conjointures, 149. Lion leaves the world and "on ne sceit
qu'il devint, on ne sceu qu'esperer" (34,086). In the fourteenth-century Ogier poems, the
Dane similarly leaves the world, but in both poems he comes back later to bring help to
the embattled kingdom, before returning once more to Faerie indefinitely. See Trachsler,
Disjointures-Conjointures, 150-62, and Poulain-Gautret, La tradition litteraire, 230-250.

165
of Lion's travails. Although they are at first in apparent contradiction, the merveilleux

and the miraculous ultimately converge in the same direction in providing succor to the

hero who always seems to require the presence of a third term, neither entirely human nor

entirely divine, to complete his task.

The Third Space of the Merveilleux

It has been elegantly posited that the supernatural in the late epic represents the

growing distance between the terrestrial realm and the sacred. While in earlier chansons

de geste God and His angels intervened directly in the affairs of men, in later poems the

supernatural manifests itself through less direct intermediaries. This is especially the

case for the White Knight, about whom Martine Gallois argues that "[l]e Blanc

Chevalier, parce qu'il procede a la fois de l'ordre humain et de l'ordre surnatural,

apparait comme une creature intermediate qui peut entretenir une relation privilegiee

avec Dieu." 137 By his two natures (once a corpse, now a divine agent), "[i]l n'assume

cependant pas completement les fonctions de l'ange, que son alterite, perdue plus

nettement que dans les chansons de geste plus anciennes, eloigne desormais de

l'humanite." 138 Such a dual identity is perhaps in line with a shift of emphasis from

communal history to individual destiny (even when there are broader issues of land and

lineage at play) in which representations of the supernatural become more personal,

personalized and anthropomorphic. Also commenting on the White Knight, Jean-Claude

Vallecalle suggests that he is a representative of a merveilleux which "constitue, en

137Martine Gallois, "Merveilleux et surnaturel dans Lion de BourgesTheophylion 2, no

2 (1998): 522.

138 Idem.

166
quelque sorte, une extension du monde humain et non point son reflet dans un miroir a la

fois proche et different, comme 1'image que renvoyaient aux visionnaires du Roland

d'Oxford ou de Gui de Bourgogne les apparitions angeliques." 139 Thus, man has lost

touch with the immanent presence of God in the world who now manifests Himself in

ways which are at the same time more obscure and more familiar.

Instead of angels, our heroes now interact with characters from the folkloric

tradition (the White Knight, Auberon, fairies, luitons, etc.) who are all, to one degree or

another, agents of God and who appear seamlessly into the world of men, without the

fracas of the angels. The Christianization of the world of fairies, "cette synthese

etonnante entre le domaine du merveilleux et celui du religieux," is indeed characteristic

of the inhabitants of Faerie in our poems who have acquired a "couverture religieuse." 140

Auberon will eventually sit next to Jesus Christ Himself. Maugis is protected by God and

the power of prayer, as well as by his magical learning and strength; Gloriande insists

that her gifts will be ineffective without baptism; Malabron in Gaufrey is adamant before

a doubtful Robastre that far from being infernal, his shape-shifting abilities come directly

from God; even the fairies of Lion de Bourges recommend him to God when he decides

to leave them. In a surprising scene in the Huon continuation Esclarmonde, the

inhabitants of Faerie are explicitly said to be those angels who did not pick a side during

Lucifer's rebellion. They are condemned to wait to receive the beatific vision, just like

139Jean-Claude Vallecalle, "Du surnaturel au merveilleux: les apparitions celestes dans

les chansons de geste tardives," in Personne, personnage et transcendence aux Xlle et
Xllle siecles, eds. Marie-Etiennette Bely and Jean-Renne Valette (Lyon: Presses
Universitaires de Lyon, 1999), 184; Verelst, "L'art de Tolede," 6.

140Jean-Claude Vallecalle, "Remarques sur le cycle en vers de Huon de Bordeauxin

Plaist vos oi'r bone cannon valiant? Melanges offerts a Francois Suard, ed. Dominique
Boutet (Villeneuve d'Ascq: Universite Charles de Gaulle-Lille 3, 1999), 2: 933.

167
men, and implicitly "servent de transition entre le monde reel et le monde feerique." 141

Even more surprisingly, we find in this poem the transformation of a woman into a fairy.

Esclarmonde, Huon's wife, cannot reign at his side in Faerie, which Huon inherited from

Auberon and won from Arthur, if she were not herself an estre fae. To resolve this

problem, Morgue gently offers to transform her into one in a baptism scene where Jesus

himself is the godfather of Esclarmonde as fairy. A "royaume chretien de Faerie," in

Harf-Lancner's formulation, stands indeed before the late epic heroes, a third space

which allows them to encounter and interact with the mysteries of the universe through a

"reconfortante mediation." 142

The question can, however, be approached from another, complementary angle.

Vallecalle suggests that the growing presence of the merveilleux in the late epic and the

multiplication of supernatural helpers under different guises may indeed testify to a

"souci de donner a la vie terrestre une dimension qui depasse la simple mesure humaine;"

itself an old concern of the chanson de geste. i4i But in light of the preceding discussion

of the fundamental narrative roles of these helpers in the late epic, we might wonder if

the merveilleux does not also point in a more negative direction, toward the insufficiency

of the "mesure humaine" itself in creating new heroes. The heroes of old (Roland, Girart,

etc.) may have been punctually helped by God and seen "[leur] propre faiblesse

141 Wathelet-Willem, "La fee Morgain," 215.

142 Harf-Lancner, La naissance des fees, 408; Vallecalle, "Remarques sur le cycle," 934.

143 Vallecalle, "Les apparitions celestes," 186.

168
compensee d'une certaine maniere par la force divine," but there was nothing to add

besides this occasional divine boost. 144

We find in Tristan de Nanteuil and in Lion de Bourges, a picture of the

contributions of the supernatural that is much altered. Discussing the White Knight,

Regnier-Bohler brings forth the idea that "les merites du chevalier ne se suffisent plus a

assurer son parcours; c'est done le revenant qui assure en coulisse la coherence de ses

actes, les lie a un programme divin [,..]." 145 We could add to this assessment that

without the White Knight, there might have been no parcours at all for Lion, who might

well have been overwhelmed by the social odds at Montlusant. The case is even more

striking for Tristan de Nanteuil who, without Gloriande, would have remained a coward,

unable to insure the deliverance of his family and the recovery of the fief. Francois Suard

notes that the abundance of the merveilleux and the folkloric in the late epic suggest that

"les nouveaux auteurs ne voyaient de salut litteraire que dans une coexistence constante

entre leurs heros et un univers merveilleux aux multiples facettes." 146 But this abundance

does not only supplement a literary genre (the chanson de geste plus Arthurian elements),

it also remediates the strength of the heroes as well as the fractures of the world. Though

the merveilleux is undeniably literary, "le merveilleux [...] n'est pas necessairement

l'indice d'une exigence superieure de gout" as Dubost reminds us. "A la recherche d'une

explication socio-historique," he continues, "il vaudrait mieux invoquer les situations de

crise, d'incertitude et de mutation culturelle, dont on sait qu'elles s'accompagnent

144 Combarieu du Gres, L 'ideal humain, 522.

145 Regnier-Bohler, "La Largesse du mort," 158.

146 Francis Suard, "Figures du romanesque,"146.

169
frequemment d'une recrudescence de l'irrationnel." 147 The cumulative effect of the

merveilleux in the chanson de geste does not only make one gasp in wonder, but

pessimistically wonder as well.

In conclusion, we can return to Gautier's anger at generic cross-pollination. Is the

inclusion of the "fables ridicules" in the chanson de geste a bastardization of the genre?

An emphatic "No" would be disingenuous. It is obvious that the chanson de geste

evolves, incorporates, changes and is changed. And yet, in the transformations we find

continuity, or at least the desire for continuity. The "fables ridicules" are not what they

appear to be. Mechanisms and strategies of renewal, they reveal and underscore the

literary and ideological difficulties of preserving and recovering the heroes of old. Their

presence is a testimony that something is missing, that the chilvaric world is in need of

something with which to correct irself. No longer sufficient to save the world or even

himself, the epic hero is a moving, shifting, incomplete character, and the road to the

recovery of orthodoxy leads him in heterogeneous, surprising directions.

147 Dubost, Aspects fantastiques, 593.

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Chapter 3

Generic Solidarity: Women in the Late Epic

In Tristan de Nanteuil, a young knight finds refuge in a forest while fleeing the

traitors who seek to imprison him. There, he chances upon a hermit who offers to share

his modest residence and pittance with him. Over the meager meal, the young knight,

Raimon de Nanteuil, Tristan's son, recounts his story to the hermit, St. Gilles. As Raimon

is lamenting his troubles, St. Gilles realizes that he is his half-brother. The forest is the

locus of family reunions, whether planned, as in La mort le roi Artu, or impromptu.

Nothing so far is completely surprising in this scene; families are constantly being

separated and brothers perennially stumble upon siblings in the late epic. What is more

unusual, even unique, are the ways in which Raimon and Gilles are related. They share

neither a mother nor a father - at least not quite. As it happens, Raimon's mother,

Blanchandine, is St. Gilles's father, Blanchandin, who became a man through the

miraculous intercession of an angel.

Tristan de Nanteuil is a poem in which surprises abound. A mermaid, a gigantic

doe, faeries, king Arthur, Morgan, Malabron are all initially unforeseen additions to a

chanson de geste. Our trouvere is quite relentless and inventive in his incorporation of

heterogeneous and heteroclite materials into his poem. Even in these circumstances,

however, the presence of a gender reassignment miracle does raise an eyebrow.

Especially since it ultimately brings about a saint whose life was extremely well-known
and who was not, for the record, ever said to be the son of a transgendered woman. 1

Beyond the sheer audacity of giving such a surprising parentage to St. Gilles lie the

problems that a statement like "My mom's your dad!" implies in a genre so profoundly

concerned with issues of lineage, family, and masculinity. In a poem resolutely trying to

restore order through whatever means, the ever-widening cast of characters barely

manages to hide the fractures that are being repaired and underscored by this

accumulation. And yet, this pile-up of novelties is part and parcel of the poetics of the

late epic and its creation of the hero.

The woman who becomes a man complicates the picture of heroism I have drawn

so far. While 1 have explored the fluidity and fragility of the concept in the late chansons

de geste, the barrier between the sexes has so far remained in place and my efforts have

been concentrated solely on male characters. Yet, we find in the late epic a plethora of

female characters who engage in the martial life, by putting on man's clothes, by

adopting a male identity, and in a few cases, by miraculously receiving a phallus as a

reward for their virtues or accomplishments. These transformations and additions

reconfigure once more the picture of heroism in the late epic. Needless to say, it also

opens up a Pandora's box of questions about gender. That said, even though I am deeply

indebted to the vocabulary of Gender Studies, most notably Judith Butler and the notion

of performativity, my discussion will not be focused exactly on masculinity/femininity.

That is, "heroism" is in some ways always coded as masculine in the epic, thus any act of

heroism represents a form of masculine act. As Butler states: "The view that gender is

1 St. Gilles figures in Jacques de Voragine's Golden Legend. There is also a complete
twelfth-century vita written about him in Old French. See Guillaume de Berneville, La
vie de Saint Gilles : texte du XHe siecle, publie d'apres le manuscrit de la Bibliotheque
laurentienne de Florence, ed. and trans. Fran^oise Laurent (Paris: Champion, 2003).

172
performative sought to show that what we take to be an internal essence of gender is

manufactured through a sustained set of acts, posited through the gendered stylization of

the body." 2 My discussion, however, will not be so much about questions of sexual

identity or the body (though there are valid roads of inquiry), but how the male/female

issues come into play as an index of something deeper about the nature and possibility of

heroism. In her study of transvestitism, Marjorie Garber convincingly posits that "one of

the most consistent and effective functions of the transvestite in culture is to indicate the

place of what I call "category crisis." 3 The category in question, in this chapter, will be

heroism (the male hero) that will be restored and supplemented by the unexpected figures

of women warriors. The epic hero, already destabilized, will be shown to be,

increasingly, the uncertain result of discursive practices.

Erotic Dissonances

In the mid-twelfth-century Roman d'Eneas, the Trojan soldiers are confronted

with an unexpected foe, in whose presence they experience a great deal of fear:

Camille yssi fors au tornoy,

.C. pucelles mena o soy,
Bien armess de couvertures,
Tout de diverses armeiires:
Moult par y ot belle compaigne
Quant eulz furent fors en la plaine.
Li TroTen les esgarderent,
A grant merveille les douterent.
Quant poignoient a euz damesses,
Cuidoient que fuissent deuesses
Qui deffendissent la cite;

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. 10th
Anniversary Edition (New York : Routledge, 1999), xv.

3Marjorie Garber, Vested Interests : Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York:
Routledge, 1992), 16.

173
 Moult en furent tuit effree,
Ne s'osoient vers eulz deffendre
Ne s'en voiloient une atendre;
A merveilles les redoutoient. 4

The Amazon-like Camille and her followers appear as aberrations, visions so strange and

awe-inspiring that the manly troops of Aeneas are unable to articulate a proper response

except terror. The sight of such "belle compaigne" (read as a military company and not

as pleasant lover) can only be understood in terms of a manifestation of the supernatural,

"cuidoient que fuissent deuesses." The appearance of female martial violence initially

disrupts the business of war as it cannot be immediately grasped. It takes the well-

adjusted arrow of a Trojan fighter to lift the paralyzing spell by piercing the breast of a

woman fighter and killing her. Realizing that the "damesses" are not "deuesses," the

Trojans then start battling them. However, the initial awe is replaced swiftly by an

equally hasty and misplaced judgment: Since they are not goddesses, they are only

women. And if they are only women, they should neither be able nor allowed to stand on

the battlefield.

The incompatibility of women and fighting is unwisely highlighted by the Trojan

Tarcon who, despite seeing how Camilla slays her opponents as expertly as any man,

attempts to "reason" with her. In a long tirade directed at Turnus's ally, he insists that the

only fighting a woman should do is while laying on her back, "la puet faire homme

recreant" (v. 7,144). Even though Camilla has already killed scores of his companions,

he insists that "ja nul preudom o l'escu / par femme ne sera vaincu" (vv. 7,144-45). So

thoroughly does he assume that a woman cannot wield weapons that he viciously asks the

4Le roman d'Eneas, ed. Aime Petit (Paris: Librairie Generale Fran9aise, 1997), vv.
7,045-59.

174
queen whether she has not come to the battlefield to entice customers, offering to pay her

and become her pimp, though he doubts whether even a hundred men could satiate her

needs. Camilla, who "ot honte et grant ire" (v. 7,171), answers his demeaning vulgarity

by declaring herself unfit for sexual intercourse:

Vostre denier ne veul je mie,

Trop avez fait folle bargaingne;
Je ne vif mie de tel gaaigne;
Miex say abatre .1. chevalier
Que acoller ne donoier:
Ne say mie combatre enverse. (vv. 7,186-91)

Camilla rejects the rectification that Tarcon wants to impose on her mode of fighting,

refusing to battle supine as he insists she should. Tarcon's attack on Camilla obviously

partakes in the recurring topos of impugning a woman's sexuality during a verbal

confrontation, whether the perceived trespass is sexual or not. In the Chanson de

Guillaume, the count of Orange lashes out at his sister the Queen in similar terms when

she attempts to prevent King Louis from sending him help: "Plus de cent prestres vus unt

ben coillie, / Forment vus unt cele clume charge, / Unc n'y volsistres apeler chambrcre." 5

But gratuitous accusations of sexual misconduct or assumptions of unquenchable carnal

desire, so recurrent a topos of medieval misogyny, appear even more incongruous in the

Roman d'Eneas6 As she was in the text's model, the Aeneid, Camilla is a virgin

dedicated to Diana and has never known either a man or the peace of the sewing

chamber; the proper womanly pursuits to which Tarcon insists she should dedicate

5 La Chanson de Guillaume, ed. F. Suard (Paris: Bordas, 1991), vv. 2,608-10.

6The old topos is one of the great concerns of Christine de Pisan who takes a great deal
of time to refute it in different works, most explicitly in the debate on the Romance of the
Rose. See Le debat sur le Roman de la rose, ed. Eric Hicks (Paris: Honore Champion,
1977), 5-27 (Christine's main letters).

175
herself and which she actively eschews. The dissonance between Tarcon's accusations

and Camilla's behavior, both on and off the battlefield, could not be greater.

Lorraine Stock has noted that the medieval author departs from his model in the

formulation and recipient of Tarcon's speech. While in the Aeneid, Tarcon ridicules "the

lascivious weakness of his men" for fleeing before Camille's troops, here he "directs his

critique against Camille and all her gender." 7 In the classical epic, the Trojans'

cowardliness was the main problem. In the Old French romance, the very presence of

women on the battlefield is threatening in and of itself, almost independently of the

military threat they pose. 8 War is conceived of as a gendered business, as a masculine

endeavor in which women should not participate, even cannot, despite evidence to the

contrary personified by Camille. This is not to suggest that Virgil was more receptive to

the idea of women warriors than the twelfth-century poet. After all, he sings of arms and

the man. This leaves little doubt about the inextricable link between warfare and

masculinity and inevitably, it seems, excludes women from the proceedings of heroic

poetry. That being said, it could be posited that Camille, as an Amazon-like character, is

more readily understandable in a Classical context (with its fighting Diana, Minerva,

Atalanta, etc.) than in the High Middle Ages, where the myths have become less

7Lorraine Kochanske Stock, "'Arms and the (Wo)man' in Medieval Romances: The
Gendered Arming of Female Warriors in the 'Roman d'Eneas and Heldris's 'Roman de
Silence,'" Arthuriana 5, no. 4 (Winter 1995): 65.

8 Fora thorough exploration of the role of Camille in Eneas, see Aime Petit, "La reine
Camille de YEneide au Roman d'Eneasin Actes du colloque sur I'epopee greco-latine
et ses prolongements europeens, December 8-9 1979 (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1982), 153-
166.

176
familiar. 9 Camille's refusal to conform to gender expectations (to sit in the sewing

chamber and to have sex) thus appears more subversive and the reaction to it more

violent. 10

Perhaps what makes Camille appear so threatening and destabilizing to the

Trojans is that even though she fights, her appearance remains very much that of a

woman, exposed to the lascivious gaze of the Trojan warriors." Tarcon's offer to pay

her for sex may not only be a jab, but also an expression of the desire stimulated by the

sight of her long hair and obvious beauty. In describing her, the poet never lets the

audience forget that she is an object of attraction, despite her lack of participation in

9This is not to suggest, of course, that the Aeneid is free of misogyny, but simply that
Camilla might have been more culturally familiar as a myth (with companions like
Atalanta, Diana, etc.) than in the Middle Ages. For the difference between Classical and
medieval misogyny, see R. Howard Bloch, Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of
Western Romantic Love (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991), 65-92.
Roberta Davidson, however, suggests that '[sjocieties of warrior women were
monstruous inversions of natural hierarchy; for this reason, perhaps, medieval audience
were fascinated by Amazons," and goes on to quote Boccaccio and Deschamps. See
"Cross-Dressing in Medieval Romance," in Textual Bodies: Changing Boundaries of
Literary Representation, ed. Lori Hope Lefkovitz (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1997), 67.

10 The sewing chamber is the "privileged" locus of feminine activity: remote, passive,
unobtrusive. We will recall that in the Roman de Silence, it is precisely the place Silence
flees when she decides to follow Noreture rather than Nature. For more, see Jane
Tolmie, "Silence in the Sewing Chamber: Le roman de Silence," French Studies 63, no. 1
(2009): 14-26.

11In an article on the trial of Joan of Arc, Susan Schibanoff has made the convincing
argument that the violence of the accusations leveled against her by the judges on the
subject of her donning a man's garb was precisely predicated on the fact that she did not
"pass" as a transvestite, but rather always remained clearly female. See "True Lies:
Transvestitism and Idolatry in the trial of Joan of Arc" in Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc,
eds. Bonnie Wheeler and Charles T. Wood (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), 31-
60.

177
"feminine" activity. She is thus clearly eroticized during this scene of preparation for

battle, as well as throughout the text:

Moult par ert bele la royne.

Vers l'ost chevauchoit la meschine ;
Cheveuls ot blois jusqu'a ses piez,
A .1. fil d'or furent treciez.
Moult fu la dame estroit vestue
De porpre noir a sa char nue. (vv. 4,094-97) 12

This combination of erotic appeal and military might is, to my knowledge, unique in Old

French literature (nor does it appear in annals and chronicles for that matter) where war -

however sexualized the combats may be - is always conceived as an exclusively male

pursuit, even when women are actually fighting.

In her study of women warriors in the Middle Ages, Megan McLaughlin draws

attention to the fact that for women to participate in warfare (and they did), they had to let

go of their feminine nature. She quotes this instructive passage from Saxo Grammaticus's

History of the Danes where Saxo describes with a certain dose of admiration the military

deeds of women, even though they apparently are not really women anymore:

Loathing a dainty style of living, they would harden body and mind with toil and
endurance, rejecting the fickle pliancy of girls and compelling their womanish
spirits to act with a virile ruthlessness. They courted military celebrity so
earnestly that you would have guessed that they had unsexed themselves. 13

This rejection of the "fickle pliancy of girls" and replacement of her womanish spirit by a

"virile ruthlessness" are of course what Camille does. But whereas Saxo Grammaticus

describes the Danish women as having "unsexed themselves," the Eneas poet and Tarcon

never unsex Camille. Described as a beautiful woman by one and perceived as a sexual

12 See also Stock, "Arms and the (Wo)man," 59-64.

13Megan McLaughlin, "The woman warrior: gender, warfare and society in medieval
Europe," Women's Studies 17 (1990): 195.

178
object by the other, she never fully becomes a warrior but is a hybrid; a warring object of

desire. Despite her best efforts and her success in silencing (or slaughtering) those who

aim to confine her to a woman's role, she does remain a woman in their eyes.

Maidens at the Rampart and the Complementarity of Female Violence

As the vicious attacks against Camille show, women and warfare do not mix

easily in the eye of their military opponents. In terms of literary history, it might also go

a long way in explaining the scant attention paid to women in the chanson de gesle until

recently. And yet, we find numerous women in castles as well as on the battlements and

battlefields in the Old French epic. In several of our fourteenth-century poems, we even

encounter surprising additions to the late heroic pantheon: women who become men

through the miraculous granting of a phallus in Yde et Olive and Tristan de Nanteuil, as

well as militarily accomplished cross-dressers. At first glance, the unusualness of such

transformations might seem disconcerting, but I argue that they serve as an extension of

the role played by many women in the chanson de geste. They are also singularly

connected to the expansion of the role of the supernatural in the late epic, which has been

discussed in the previous chapter. There always appears to be something slightly magical

(unnatural or supernatural) about a woman fighter who can always be mistaken for a

deuesse.

For a long time, critics had considered women as somehow foreign to the epic

genre, and their presence was almost automatically designated (or diagnosed) as a sign of

romance influence (or contamination). The fabric of the epic is masculine, standing in

sharp contrast to the valorization of the feminine in the novel, or so the story goes. Epic

179
heroes barely thought of women, and epic poets certainly did not let them speak. Leon

Gautier, in his introduction to the Chanson de Roland, praises the single-minded

patriotism of Roland as a safeguard against the idle thoughts of love and women: "S'il est

vainqueur, il pensera a Aude peut-etre. Mais, d'ailleurs, il a d'autres amours: la France,

d'abord, et Charlemagne apres la France." 14 This Aude, to whom the great hero pays so

little attention, has often been seen as the epigone of the epic woman. Making an

appearance toward the end of the poem only to collapse and die upon learning of

Roland's death, she represents an ideal of silent femininity that mirrors the virile activity

of Charlemagne's nephew and his love of France. 15 Her death is a foil to the heroic

martyrdom of Roland.

In recent years, new explorations of the roles of women in the chanson de geste,

most notably by Sarah Kay, have succeeded in debunking many of the commonplaces

associated with the epic woman. As Kay sees it, the lack of attention paid to women in

the Old French epics is not necessarily a reflection of their unimportance in these poems,

but rather a reflection of the critical ideas and ideals about them that have been

perpetuated since the beginning of medieval studies. Gautier's view of Aude, quoted

above, is a fair representation of this entrenched trend, still sometimes echoed in modern

scholarship. Kay suggests that such distinguished students of the chanson de geste as

Bernard Guidot and Francois Suard have unwittingly downplayed the importance of

14La Chanson de Roland, ed. Leon Gautier (Tours: Alfred Name et Fils, Editeurs, 1885),
xxxi.

15Not all versions of Roland neglect Aude, however. In the Chateauroux-Veniee 7

version, for example, Aude's mourning occupies several hundreds lines. See The Song of
Roland, the French Corpus. Part 3. The Chateauroux-Veniee 7 Version, ed. Joseph J.
Duggan (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), vv. 6,658-ff.

180
women in the epic. For both Guidot and Suard, Kay asserts, the chanson de geste is an

attempt to represent (an idealized) society, and, "'society' has to do with religion, with

knighthood and kingship: women are not part of it, and they have no place in the

chansons de geste, being merely escapees from another genre." 16 And yet, as Kay

demonstrates, women play fundamental roles in social relations in the epic, such as

kingship and kinship, even if only as tokens passed around between men. The exchange

and presence of women offers a counterpoint and at least expresses tension in the

apparently rigid masculine ideology of the chanson de geste. The crucial significance of

women in relations of exchange between men renders their absence from scholarship

problematic.

A reconsideration of women's roles allows us to de-homogenize the epic universe

as it is constructed and as it has been constructed by readers. 17 Representing a difference,

l6 SarahKay, The Chansons de Geste in the Age of Romance: Political Fictions (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1995), 29. Kay is here making reference to Francpois Suard, "La
chanson de geste comme systeme de representation du monde," in Memorias de la Real
Academia de Buenas Letreas de Barcelona 22 (1990), 2: 241-68, and Bernard Guidot,
Recherches sur la chanson de geste au XIHe siecle, d'apres certaines oeuvres du cycle de
Guillaume d'Orange (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l'Universite de Provence, 1986).
In both books, it is true, women are not discussed much. For an informative overview of
the representation of women in the chansons de geste see, Sarah Kay, " La representation
de la feminite dans les chansons de geste," in Charlemagne in the North: Proceedings of
the Twelfth International Conference of the Societe Rencesvals, eds. Phillip E. Bennett,
Anne Elizabeth Colby and Graham A. Runnals (Edinburgh: Societe Rencesvals British
Branch, 1993), 223-240. In a recent book, Finn E. Sinclair also explores the neglected
role of mothers in the chanson de geste and its relations to family links and kinship. See
Milk & Blood: Gender and Genealogy in the Chanson de Geste (Oxford: Peter Lang,
2003).

17Kay, in an earlier article had previously criticized the central assumption in discussions
of the chanson de geste: "Zumthor, perhaps, reveals something of his hand when he
relates the difference between epic and romance to the opposition between 'action
collective' and 'un homme.' Collective action is the action of a group of men; the kind of
men, as Jauss admits, who have a stake in 'la communaute chretienne et nationale;' free,

181
ipso facto one might say, their presence forces the reader to reconsider the meaning of the

epic genre. Simon Gaunt notes how "[i]n many chansons de geste [...] women play a

diagnostic role which underlines the inadequacies of the genre's construction of

masculinity." 18 One of the most celebrated examples of this phenomenon is Guibourc's

reproachful tirade at Guillaume when he comes back, alone and carrying the body of his

dead nephew, after a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Saracens in the Chanson de

Guillaume. Seeing him so pitiful and defeated, Guibourc does not recognize him (or

pretends not to). The lonely figure under the walls of Orange cannot be her husband, she

says, for her husband would have come back victorious or not come back at all. Begging

entry into the city, Guillaume is scolded by his wife, who declares:

Si vus fuissez Willame al curb nies

Od vus venissent set mile homes armez,
Des Francs de France, des baruns naturels;
Tut entur vus chantessent ces jugglers,
Rotes e harpes i oi'st hom soner! (vv. 2,244-48)

As Guibourc exemplifies with such gusto, women can also uphold and articulate feudal

ideals and therefore act as a "supplement to the masculinity of the hero." 19 But this

supplementation also rebukes the apparent vector of heroism in the poem, Guillaume, as

it "highlights the weakness of Guillaume's masculinity and subverts it." 20 It would be

lay, Western men, like the critics themselves, who operate on the text the same
exclusions as the epic poets before them [...]." See her "Seduction and suppression in
'Ami et Amile,'" French Studies 44, no. 2 (April 1990): 129. I admit that my discussion
of heroism and women might replicate, in some ways, something of this prejudice as it
focuses not so much on women as on the fluid category of heroism.

18Simon Gaunt, Gender and Genre in French Medieval Literature (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1995), 64

19 Ibid., 65.

182
wrong, in this case, to assume that Guibourc is "emasculating" her husband; his crushing

defeat has already accomplished this. Rather, the confrontation between husband and

wife serves to reassert the ideological legitimacy of the hero through a demonstration of

his masculinity. Her standardized epic discourse, emphasized through the twice repeated

"Se vus fuissez Willame al curb nies" (2,244, 2,268), forces Guillaume to reassume his

identity as the victorious knight. Goaded by her disbelief, he performs feats of arms that

make her say: "A icest colp resemblez vus Willame: / Venez vu sent, ja ert la porte

overte" (vv. 2,305-06). Although the image of a knight fighting to gain or regain the

approval of his beloved might come to mind in this scene, it would be a mistake to see

the dynamics between Guillaume and Guibourc through the lens of romance. Guillaume

is not fighting for his lady's love (nor is it what Guibourc asks of him), but for his

identity as an epic hero. Even when it needs to be supplemented by a woman, violence in

the chanson de geste is always at the service of the epic project.

Women do not, however, always remain confined to a purely verbal relationship

to violence within the epic world. Examples of women fighting in the Old French epic

abound. In the Chanson de Guillaume, Guibourc does not only talk the talk of the feudal

order, but she also walks the walk by offering to defend the walls of the city at the head

of an army of the town's ladies while Guillaume goes to Laon to seek the emperor's

assistance. But Guibourc's gallant offer is not only a manifestation of her devotion to her

husband and the city (she is the one suggesting that he leave for court), but a comment on

the failure of men to protect and defend themselves. The necessity for women to fight, to

wear the "blancs halbercs" and the "vers healmes aguz" (v. 2,445-46) is a response to the

20 Idem.

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defeats of Guillaume's army. Of course, the "maiden at the ramparts" is itself a topos of

the genre, and does not systematically imply a critique of masculinity as in La Chanson

de Guillaume. Philippe Menard has even suggested that fighting women might be seen

only as a pleasant diversion, a touch of levity in the midst of war. 21 In the twelfth-

century Fierabras, for example, the Saracen princess Floripas and her handmaidens help

the French knights defend the castle where they are besieged against the assaults led by

her own father. In this case, the assistance is linked to romantic love, as the princess is

motivated by her affection for the French knight Gui de Bourgogne. 22 The link to the

preservation or restoration of the feudal order is therefore tenuous at best. Moreover, this

stock-scene is less interesting for an exploration of women and violence as it is almost

always presented as a purely reactive and defensive action. As Megan McLaughlin also

reminds us, this type of martial activity was not completely unusual amongst medieval

women in "emergency situations." 23 The maidens at the ramparts do not engage in what

could be termed traditional epic forms of violence as they are more often than not simply

throwing rocks or javelins from above, with no particular martial prowess involved.

They also retain their feminine attire and are never mistaken for men, foreclosing in these

scenes the possibility of a challenge to masculinity or to the wholeness of the epic hero.

Masculine ideology is never explicitly questioned by the appearance of a "dame

combattante" in a chanson de geste, but she nonetheless hints at its failures. The

2 'Philippe
Menard, Le rire et le sourire dans le roman courtois en France au Moyen Age
(1150-1250) (Geneva: Droz, 1969), 107.

22
Kay has discussed how the assertive character of the Saracen princess itself
problematized a fixed view of gender roles in the epic. See her Chansons de Geste in the
Age of Romance, 25-48.

23 McLaughlin, "The woman warrior," 195-96.

184
inadequacy of the hero or heroes to ensure victories requires women to fight. Studying

the fascinating roles played by women in the cycle des Lorrains, Catherine M. Jones has

drawn further attention to the famous scene in which 20,000 Bordelais women join the

battle in Anseys de Mes, "vingt mille femmes refusent enfin d'etre les victimes passives

d'un conflit qui leur a enleve fils, freres, maris et amants: revendiquant leur part de

prouesse epique, elles prennent les armes et assurent la victoire des Flamands-Bordelais a

Santerre." 24 Women are oftentimes the ones left behind after a battle, and since they do

not all vanish like Aude, they are destined to suffer unless they act otherwise. However,

claiming their "part de prouesse epique" implies forgoing their feminine attire and

adopting all the physical trappings of the male knight; they thus go unrecognized on the

battlefield. Hundreds of years before Judith Butler, the Bordelaises anticipate gender

performativity; a woman cannot really fight if she is thought to be a woman. "[Wjomen

take on men's dress to 'un-sex' themselves, to take on men's roles," according to Peggy

McCraken who also quotes Saxo Grammaticus's observation in her study of gender and

violence. 25 The potential of women warriors to disrupt the association male/violence,

female/passive suffering is thus recuperated within a normative framework, however

fragile. For, as Kimberlee Anne Campbell puts it, "[t]he dominant ideology, which

conceptualizes force as essentially male, represents a significant barrier: a woman who is

part of the feudal, Christian world may be portrayed as obscuring her sexual identity as a

24Catherine M. Jones, " 'Se je fusse hons:' les guerrieres dans Anseys de Mes," in
Charlemagne in the North: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference of the
Societe Rencesvals, eds. Phillip E. Bennett, Anne Elizabeth Colby and Graham A.
Runnals (Edinburgh: Societe Rencesvals British Branch, 1993), 291.

25
Peggy McCracken, The Curse of Eve, the Wound of the Hero: Blood, Gender, and
Medieval Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 29.

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neccssary prerequisite to the effective use of physical force, or she may be condemned to

a gender-based ineffectuality." 26 Moreover, the use of force by women is always

performed for these very same masculine motivations of defense and revenge.

At the same time, the woman who cross-dresses as a knight is always

symptomatic of something that went amiss in the world. In the Roman de Silence, most

notably, cross-dressing is predicated on the unjust inheritance laws put into place by the

king. 27 Though they disguise themselves "pour beneficier des privileges masculins"

according to Michelle Perret, it is always done because something has occurred to render

•» • 2X
this desire necessary (or the decision was taken for the character, in the case of Silence).

It is thus rarely a self-conscious act of affirmation or an explicit refusal to conform to

26Kimberlee Anne Campbell, "Fighting back: a Survey of Patterns of Female

Aggressiveness in the Old French chanson de geste," in Charlemagne in the North:
Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference of the Societe Rencesvals, eds.
Phillip E. Bennett, Anne Elizabeth Colby and Graham A. Runnals (Edinburgh: Societe
Rencesvals British Branch, 1993), 250. In a different context, Schibanoff makes the case
that "[o]ne common denominator among medieval female transvestites who were
culturally sanctioned, then, is that they achieve complete disguise, total effacement of
their female sex, and I am arguing here that medieval women who passed as men were
the ones eligible for sanctification See her "Transvestism and Idolatry in the Trials
of Joan of Arc," 42.

27 Forthe links between cross-dressing and inheritance politics, see Sharon Kinoshita,
"Heldris de Cornualle's Roman de Silence and the Feudal Politics of Lineage,"
Publications of the Modern Language Association 110, no. 3 (May 1995): 397-409. See,
Heldris de Cornualle, Silence: a thirteenth-century French romance, ed. and trans. Sarah
Roche-Mahdi (East Lansing: Colleagues Press, 1992). The story of Avenable/Grisandole
in the Arthurian Vulgate seems also to be linked to inheritance politics as Avenable's
cross-dressing and service to the emperor, followed by their union brought about by
Merlin, ultimately result in the restoration of her parents' fief. See The Vulgate Version
of the Arthurian Romances edited from Manuscripts in the British Museum Volume II.
Lestoire de Merlin, ed. H. Oskar Sommer (Washington, the Carnegie Institution of
Washington, 1908), 281-292.

28
Michele Perret, "Travesties et transsexuelles: Ydes, Silence, Grisandole,
Blanchandine," Romance Note 25, no.3 (1985): 329.

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gender norms. The Bordelaises only enter the fray because decades of conflicts with the

Lorrains have decimated the male warriors. We find another revealing example in the

fourteenth-century alexandrine rewriting of the earlier Jourdain de Blaye.29 In this text,

we encounter Jourdain's daughter Jourdaine (only separated by an -e from her father)

trying to defend a castle under assault by an army of Infidels. 30 The "natural" defenders

are however absent: the father, the son and the husband.

Moult regrette Jourdain qui l'avoit engendree

Et son enfant Richart a la brace quaree
Et son mary Saudoine qui tan tot renommee. 31

The absence of the triumvirate of heroic masculine figures leads her to assume their

function. But far from being presented as a usurpation of male privileges, Jourdaine's

adoption of military leadership and of the male garb concomitant with it is seen in a

positive light. Her behavior is portrayed as a sign of her good stock and breeding. In the

absence of men, Jourdaine is in charge of the defense of the realm (in this case, Escoce)

and of Christendom:

29This poem is a vastly expanded rewriting of a version from the beginning of the
thirteenth century, as well as a sequel to Ami et Amile. The earlier poem is also available
in a modern edition, see Jourdain de Blaye: chanson de geste, ed. Peter F. Dembowski
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969).

30There is certainly something about the war against the Infidels that seems to justify
female violence. Krijnie Ciggaar has made the argument that the participation of women
in the First Crusade contributed to the legitimization of the female warrior and to the
presence of the theme in the chanson de geste. Not not only did women also go to the
Crusades, but more importantly perhaps, they were often left in charge of the castle in the
absence of the male warriors. See "La dame combattante: theme epique et theme
courtois au temps des croisades" in Aspects de I 'epopee romane. Mentalite, ideologies,
intertextualites, eds. Hans von Dijk and Willem Noomen (Groningen: Egbert Forsten,
1995), 121-130.

31 Jourdainde Blaye en alexandrins, 2 vols., ed. Takeshi Matsumura (Geneva: Droz,

1999), 2: vv. 21,435-37.

187
 Si entendez comment Jourdaine l'alosee
Fu de bon sane conchute, estraite et engenree.
A soy mei'smez dist la roi'ne senee
Qu'elle aimme mieux morir entre gent deffaee
Qu'elle soit assegie par le gent desguisee,
Anchois ara sa char fervestie et armee
A loy de cevalier et le targe acolee,
Et yra sur paiiens le pute gent dervee. (vv. 21,440-47)

In these dire circumstances, Jourdaine's martial gender-bending is presented as a more

natural action, for "fu de bon sane conchute," than the travesty of the false religion of the

"gent desguisee," understood here as a synonym for bizarre.

Despite the extremely positive depiction of Jourdaine's actions as a war-leader

(she is "alosee," "senee," "au fier contenement," with a "cuer fier"), there is a strong

impulse to return to the predictably normative. Jourdaine has literally stepped into her

father's shoes (his armor), and she is even mistaken for him by the Saracen Kalefrin. The

confusion both elevates Jourdaine to the heroic pantheon (could she not become the

warring subject of a poem herself?) and raises issues of what exactly makes a hero. Is it

simply a question of fortitude and weapons? And where does being male fit into the

equation? These inherent ideological problems come to a head in a spectacular scene of

battle which has, to my knowledge, few equivalents in Old French literature: the

possibility of parricide by a daughter. 32

32 French epics are replete with the dangers of sons killing their fathers: a natural
consequence of the "dispersed family" scenario. They never, however, repeat the Oedipal
scenario of successful parricide. And, of course, we find numerous representations and
variations on the Oedipus theme in the chansons de geste, perhaps most notably in the
antagonism between Roland and Ganelon in the Chanson de Roland. See, R. Howard
Bloch, "Roland and Oedipus: A Study of Paternity in La Chanson de Roland," French
Review 46 (1973): 1-18. The case of Jourdaine in Jourdain de Blayes, however, is, to my
knowledge, the only combat between a daughter and her father in a chanson de geste.
There has been scant work on the father-daughter relationship in the epic, and an
investigation of it would certainly yields interesting results.

188
 Having heard of the troubles in Escoce, Jourdain has set out with Jourdaine's son

and husband to come to her aid. Both meet in the theater of war, but neither recognizes

the other; Jourdain thinks that his daughter is a pagan wearing his armor, and Jourdaine

only sees in his "fier contenement" a foe to be dealt with. For a very brief moment, the

poet plays with the possibility that Jourdaine might completely assert herself as a knight

by killing her father. She deals such a first blow to her father that "l'escu li percha et

trestout li pourfent" (v. 21,677). But her lance is not strong enough, and it breaks against

Jourdain's armor. In this moment of family reunion, gender roles and relations reassert

themselves almost immediately. Jourdain strikes Jourdaine's helmet and instantly sees

that unmistakable symbol of her femininity, her "gente quevelure" (v. 21,685). This

produces, not unlike the beauty of Camilla, a "gran merveille" as "onques mais ne vit

femme armee ensement" (vv. 21,686-87). Jourdaine has not only been vanquished by her

father, she has been returned to her traditional roles as a daughter, a mother and a wife.

All dismount their horses and embrace each other. The happy reunion is cut short by

Jourdain's call to arms:

Signeur, ce dist Jourdain, lessons ce parlement,

S'alons a le bataille sur le paienne gent.
Adont sont remontez trestout communalment. (vv. 21,695-97)

Despite her visible prowess, Jourdaine is no longer included in the business of war

("Signeur" are the only addressees of Jourdain's exhortation to combat) now that she has

been dis-covered by the sword of her father. She then all but disappears from the poem.

Like Silence in the Roman de Silence, who no longer speaks or acts once her biological

sex is revealed, Jourdaine counts for naught as she removes her helmet.

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 As Valerie Hotchkiss, in her study of medieval cross-dressing, states, "[m]ale

disguise, as a literary device, allows authors to develop nontraditional female characters

but, in most cases, foists a male model of fictional heroism onto female characters." 31

The male model is defined through virtues, possessed by Jourdaine because of her

lineage, and, most importantly, by dress. Once Jourdaine's long hair has been made

visible, she can no longer behave as she had, since it conflicts with the "male model."

Yet, the presence of Jourdaine at the head of the army and her near-displacement of her

father, illustrated by the failed combat, articulate a conflicting picture of male heroism

itself. By needing to be supplemented by a nontraditional hero (a woman donning

armor), the masculine ethos of war is reaffirmed in its basic values while being

challenged by the possibility that the absence of men might be easily remedied. The male

and female warriors appear interchangeable, yet cannot occupy the same space. Once

Jourdain "re-becomes" Jourdain by resuming his duty as the leader of the host, Jourdaine

is ever more Jourdaine.

Aye d'Avignon and Familial Shortcomings

The adoption of a male warrior identity by the Bordelaises and Jourdaine de

Blaye takes place in a delimited timeframe and under specific and dire circumstances.

While they do cross-dress in that they wear armor, they cannot be described fully as

transvestites. Their intervention into the masculine world is punctual and literally

dependent upon a helmet to hide their features and their hair. They perform as men, but

they do not ultimately assume a male identity. The gender play is thus circumscribed,

33Valerie R. Hotchkiss, Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval
Europe (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), 104

190
and the focus of the poem remains almost solely on the male hero; these are not stories

about women knights. Nonetheless, transvestite knights comment on the fragility of the

heroic construct. Not explicitly concerned with gender, they represent, as Marjorie

Garber has argued, a "category crisis," in this case the masculine hero. 34 In the

fourteenth-century Tristan de Nanteuil, on the other hand, we find a more extended

elaboration of the potential restorative power of the cross-dressed female warrior. As we

have seen in the previous two chapters, the universe of Tristan de Nanteuil is

characterized by chaos and fragmentation. The entire family has been scattered to all

corners of the Saracen world; there is little hope of return; and, most significantly, the

eponymous hero of the poem is utterly ineffectual for its first 10,000 lines. In the midst

of such disorder, Tristan's grandmother, Aye d'Avignon, steps into the fray and adopts a

male identity, under the name of Gaudion. Because of a lacuna in the only surviving

manuscript, the exact circumstances of Aye's decision to disguise herself are unknown,

but there is no doubt that it is in response to the aforementioned factors. Unlike many

medieval heroines, Aye does not cross-dress as a defense against the sexual persecutions

of men, which is a frequent point of departure for transvestitism. 35 She cross-dresses to

be of better use to her family, to "try to escape the limitations assigned to [her] gender

34 Garber, Vested Interests, 16.

35 Escaping from female garb into man's clothes is not necessarily a reaction to an
attempted rape, but can also be a flight into the "liberating" realm of men. For female
saints who cross-dress, the change of clothes affords them the opportunity to remove
themselves from the marriage or sexual economy in order to concentrate on their spiritual
salvation. The most well-known cross-dressed saints are Marina and Pelagia, whose
stories are recounted in the Golden Legend. For more on female saints, see Hotchkiss,
Clothes Make the Man, 13-31, and Bullough, "Cross Dressing and Gender Role in the
Middle Ages," in Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, eds. Vern L. Bullough and James A.
Brundage, (New York: Garland, 1996), 226-230.

191
role." 36 Yet, what these limitations restrict is not the blossoming of her individuality nor a

desire for adventure, but her ability to come to the rescue of her male relatives. She

breaks free of the social constraints imposed on her biological sex only when the

masculine characters have failed.

The imprisonment of her three sons and of her husband leaves Aye, and the

Nanteuil lineage, without its natural defenders and causes a radical transformation in the

character of Aye. Indeed, as William Kibler points out, the Aye known from the

thirteenth-century Aye d'Avignon has little to do with the Aye of Tristan de Nanteuil:

"Quand nous l'entendons discourir [in Aye d'Avignon], ce sont surtout des prieres et des

cris de detresse, des appels a l'aide de Dieu de la secourir, elle ou l'un de ses

champions." 37 These appeals are generally answered, and the male relatives manage to

rescue her (and themselves). 38 The poem thus concludes in relative harmony. But in the

case of the first 3,000 lines of Tristan de Nanteuil, the fragmentation of the family is only

equaled by the incapacity of its masculine representatives to act. The task at first falls to

Aye. Aye's initially successful (though temporary) cross-dressing further emphasizes the

36 Vern L. Bullough, "Cross Dressing and Gender Role Change," 232. See also an earlier
article by Bullough, "Transvestites in the Middle Ages," American Journal of Sociology
79, no. 6 (May 1974): 1381-1394.

37William W. Kibler, "Les personnages feminins dans la geste de Nanteuil," in

Charlemagne in the North, 311. Kibler also rightly points out that the character of Aye in
Tristan de Nanteuil is not completely stable. It is only once all her male defenders have
been captured that she jumps in the epic action by herself, released, so to speak, from the
constraint of her companions.

^X
Although we find in Aye dAvignon another example of the supplementation of the
warrior class. In this case, it is the addition of a new Christian knight who converts
because of his love for Aye, in an unusual variation on the topos of the Saracen princess
embracing Christianity for the love of a French knight. See Aye dAvignon, chanson de
geste anonyme, ed. S. J. Borg (Geneva: Droz, 1967). The Christian knight who converts
eventually marries Aye and he is also a protagonist in Tristan de Nanteuil.

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shortcomings of the male characters, though not of the male ethos, and the need for the

restoration of the epic whole.

As Gaudion, Aye performs her knightly duties in a spectacularly efficient manner,

being both valiant and cunning in combat and wise in council. 39 So successful a man is

she that she is offered the recompense habitually reserved for the young knight who has

proven himself: a beautiful woman in marriage, in this case, her own daughter-in-law

Aiglantine. This is clearly not Aye's objective as she aims precisely to reunite her with

her son, Gui de Nanteuil. We even have a glimpse of humor as she declares, "On me

vault donner femme et je quier mon barron" (v. 1,810). 40 As Georges has shown, the

poet does take a certain delight in highlighting the disjuncture between her biological sex

and her gendered performance, especially in scenes of combat. 41 Beyond the occasional

playfulness of the poet, however, the overriding principle of Aye's cross-dressed

39See Kimberlee Campbell, "Acting like a Man: Performing Gender in Tristan de

Nanteuil," in Cultural Performances in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Nancy
Freeman Regalado, eds. Eglal Doss-Quinby, Roberta L. Krueger, E. Jane Burns
(Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2007), 84-85; and Alban Georges, Tristan de Nanteuil:
Ecriture et imaginaire epiques au XIV 2 siecle (Paris: Honore Champion, 2006), 551-553.
Aye d'Avignon, and women cross-dressers, could have had a place in the first chapter,
for they are very much an illustration of the "deeds make the man." We can see this
clearly when we encounter in Tristan de Nanteuil the emir Galafre discussing the worth
of Gaudion/Aye and saying that "On ne scet de qui il est ne de quell heritier, / Fors tant
qu'i scet ferir de l'espee d'acier" (vv. 2088-89).

4<) Theassociation of cross-dressing, marital fidelity, and service to the husband is not
uncommon. We find it in Boccaccio for example, and it also constitutes the main part of
the thirteenth-century short romance Le Roman du roi Flore et de la belle Jehanne. In
this novel, the wife wrongly accused of adultery dresses as a man in order to serve her
husband as his valet for many years, before eventually revealing her identity once she has
made sure that she has been fully exonerated of alleged infidelity. See Le roman du roi
Flore et de la belle Jeanne, publie pour la premiere fois, d'apres un manuscrit de la
Bibliotheque royale, ed. Francisque Michel (Paris: Techener, 1838).

41 Alban Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 550-53. For an example of the

linguistic playfulness of the author, see Tristan de Nanteuil, vv. 2,838-57.

193
performance is never forgotten, and the whole endeavor remains a fundamentally serious

one. We are not in the realm of the vain et plaisant, and her valor is explicitly linked to

the service of her masculine lineage:

Et dame Aye et ly scien s'y prouvent vaillanment,

Par devant l'estandart entroit on ens ou sane;
Dame Aye d'Avignon y fiert hardi'ement,
Ains dame ne fit ce, saches certainement,
Que fist celle royne dont je fais parlement;
Mais s'estoit pour aquerre honneur parfaittement
Que de son seigneur puist fere delivrement
Et de ses deux enffans qu'elle ama loyaulment. (vv. 2,838-45)

The acquisition of honneur has as its sole purpose the deliverance of the male members

of the family, who at this point cut a rather piteous figure compared to the virile and

martial taye Aye. But while the masculine characters seem to be at a disadvantage, the

epic ethos is nonetheless preserved in the person of Aye. The poet is careful to curb the

potentially transgressive success of Aye by realigning it firmly within the framework of

familial duty, "Mais s'estoit..." In some ways similar to the epic bastards fighting for the

family without hope of reward, fighting because it ought to be done, the female

performance of martial deeds is subordinated to the general welfare of the family unit.

All the more since they cannot participate fully in the system of rewards for military

bravery: marrying a woman and earning the opportunity to continue one's lineage.

Though humorous at times, Aye qua Gaudion in fact stands as a pure and disinterested

example of chivalry, a moral and martial measure to which her son and grandson might

very well aspire.

Aye's gendered performance can indeed be seen as an undiluted display of

chivalric behavior, disinterested from the usual expected rewards: violence is solely in

the service of a greater cause, the generic integrity of the chanson de geste. The

194
matriarch of a clan, her duty is to her children. But Valerie Hotchkiss, among others, has

noted how conflicts and problems usually arise in episodes of transvestitism when the

natural consequences of successful masculinity present themselves, "When such a course

of societal acceptance [the traditional behavior of a male hero] inevitably brings the hero

into the service of an admiring lady, society's skewed perception becomes instrumental

in uncovering the truth because it requires that the ideal knight be sexually active." 42 As

we shall see later on, this is precisely what happens to other epic heroines. Aye's case is

slightly different because the woman who seems to be destined for her in the poem is her

own daughter-in-law, and she swears to her that she has no other motive than to reunite

her with Gui. She does, however, unwittingly enter into a sexual triangle as the sultan

whom she serves, Mugafier, has fallen in love with Aiglantine and sees Aye/Gaudion as a

rival. The sultan thinks to himself, "Bien pense, s'il est mors, qu'il averoit l'amour /

D'Aiglentine la belle a la fresche coullour" (vv. 2,334-3). Against this threat of sexual

violence toward Aiglentine, Aye stands as an asexual defender, wanting nothing more

than to safeguard Gui's wife. Avoiding any reference to the threat of a homosexual

incestuous connection circumscribes the potentially disruptive presence of Aye's

transvestitism, and glorifies her service even more. Away from the conflict between

Nature and Noreture involved in the gender conflict of the Roman de Silence, Aye's

masculine performance ultimately derives from her motherly instinct. Beyond the

linguistic impishness of the text with pronouns, this aspect of Aye as the mother is

explicitly underscored when she attends to her grandchild, Tristan, in the forest, after

hearing of the existence of the giant cerve and of the baby. The toddler Tristan

42 Hotchkiss, Clothes Make the Man, 118.

195
(anticipating what he will later be) is initially afraid of this fearsome knight, running

away from him. So as to appease him, Aye bares her breast, and "luy monstra ses

mamelles dont son pere nourry / Hors de son sain les trait que l'enffes les choisy" (vv.

2,539-40). Though clad as knight, Aye is still the mother who unites the "pere" to

"l'enffes," and her cross-dressing is only but an unusual means aiming to achieve this

result.

The apparent absence of a subversive element in Aye's performance, however, is

as superficial as the clothes that allow her to behave like a man. We are again reminded

of Campbell's statement that "[t]he dominant ideology, which conceptualizes force as

essentially male, represents a significant barrier: a woman who is part of the feudal,

Christian world may be portrayed as obscuring her sexual identity as a necessary

prerequisite to the use of physical force, or she may be doomed to a gender-based

ineffectually." 43 While this assessment is partly correct, it fails to take into account how

ineffectual the use of physical force by men so often is in the late chansons de geste.

Therefore, the re-affirmation of the normative by the fact that the only way for a woman

to take part in the "feudal, Christian world" is to dress up as a man is not as interesting as

the necessity for the masculine universe to be remediated by women. Moreover, the

category of masculine prowess itself appears fluid, even superficial, in light of the case

with which it can be reproduced. 44

43 Campbell, "Fighting back," 250.

44The text that obviously comes to mind is the Roman de Silence, in which relations
between inner being (if there is such a thing) and outer appearance are developed at
greater lengths. The issue of clothing is, as R. Howard Bloch has demonstrated,
fundamental to the understanding of the poem: "What remains essential, however, is not
whether or not Nature lurks beneath the veil of representation, but the incongruity of the

196
 At the same time, the Tristan de Nanteuil poet uses his play with gender roles not

only to undermine the poem's knights, but the contemporary chivalric class as well.

While Aye is in battle, excelling in martial deeds, the poet offers the following comment:

Et Dieu est tout puissant, toutes choses consent

Et fait quanqu'i plest et lui vient a tallant.
Mainte miracle a fete au temps enciennement
Top plus qu'il ne face ore, on le scet clerement,
Mais c'est pour la malice et la mauvais convent
De quoy plain est le siecles et d'orgueul proprement. (vv. 2,346-51)

The valiance shown in battle by Aye is the valiance that should always be displayed, but

which is not. God's appearance may appear somewhat surprising since, while Aye is

battling Saracens, she is doing so on behalf of other Saracens. Yet, this is the fate of so

many heroes of the late epic who seem condemned to wandering, and she is doing so on

behalf of her family. 45 Though God should not be dismissed as a literary device, it is

difficult not to see this easy explanation of female heroism (seamlessly coupled with a

moralistic tirade) as drawing attention to the artificiality of the scene. God's miracle

explains the anomaly of female heroism while simultaneously drawing attention to the

fragility of the heroic construct in general, predicated upon a system of miracles that can

no longer be replicated. 46 Deceptively positive, the woman's successful performance of

rapport between the body and that which covers it. [...] Clothes, like the letter that masks
sense, serve more to obscure than to make plain." See his "Silence and Holes: The
Roman de Silence and the Art of the Trouvere," Yale French Studies 70 (1986): 95.

45For example, Bernier, in the second part of Raoul de Cambrai, also ends up fighting
for a Saracen lord in Spain while seeking his son.

46The association between divine blessing and female heroism that most obviously
comes to mind is the historical case of Joan of Arc. For example, in her Ditie de Jehanne
d'Arc, Christine de Pizan writes of her prowess:
Car, se Dieu fist par Josue
Des miracles a si grant somme,

197
heroism raises the question of why it has to be there in the first place. Not unlike the role

of the merveilleux discussed in the previous chapter, the restorative power of

transvestitism destabilizes the unity of the masculine heroic construct by underscoring its

own artificiality.

The direct and explicit divine blessing of episodes of transvestite women removes

its potential problematic implications by reintegrating them into a normative framework.

Yet, questions remain as to what this framework is. Doubting the importance of God for

the medieval mind is of course out of the question. In the chanson de geste as in history,

as in every aspect of the worldview of the Middle Ages, God is everywhere and He

manifests himself precisely through the anomalous and the supernatural, as hagiography

amply testifies. But I am suggesting that the forceful manifestations of God in the late

epic through instances of female heroism exacerbates certain trends I have discussed

previously, namely that heroism is interrogated by its constant need to be fixed,

remediated, supplemented.

We find another example of cross-dressing in Tristan de Nanteuii's sister work,

Lion de Bourges, which sheds even more light on the reconfiguration of the epic hero. In

Conquerant lieux, et jus rue

Y furent maint, il estoit homme
Fort et puissant. Mais, toute somme,
Une femme - simple bergere -
Plus preux qu'onc homs ne fut a Romme!
Quant a Dieu, c'est chose legiere!

Ditie de Jehanne d'Arc, eds. Angus J. Kennedy and Kenneth Varty (Oxford: Society for
the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literatures, 1977), vv. 193-200. That being said,
Kelly DeVries has made the argument that even though our "impression of Joan is not
one of military skills; it is instead one of her religious devotion," Joan was also a skilled
military leader behaving like a mercenary captain offering salvation instead of loots. See
her "A Woman Leader of Men: Joan of Arc's Military Career," in Fresh Verdicts on Joan
of Arc, 9.

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this poem, Lion's mother, Alais, has through a series of misadventures ended up in the

kitchens of the Emir of Toledo disguised as a young man named Balliant. But all is not

well in the Saracen city as Marsile, who appears to have a universally bad reputation, is

laying waste to the city and his champion, the giant Lucien, inflicts great sorrows upon

the city's inhabitants. All the fighters sent by the emir fail miserably, and the situation is

growing desperate. It is at this juncture that an angel appears to Alais in a dream. After

reassuring her about her familial concerns, the angel proclaims that it is God's will that

"tu soiez armee droitt a l'ajornement / de tout ce qu'il affiert a home anthierement" (vv.

1,587-88), for it is her destiny to kill the giant. The kitchen boy Balliant is thus

transformed, by divine order, into a fighting knight. In the morning, Alais dresses as "il

affiert a home" and sneaks out of the castle, not without having being mocked by the rest

of the staff for her bizarre chivalric accouterment. For the hero's clothes do not fit her

very well, as the giant Lucien will soon point out when she comes upon him. What

follows is an exchange that is a variation on an epic stock scene; the formidable pagan

foe feeling that his opponent is unequal to the task and that it would be dishonorable to

engage in combat with him. Such a scene occurs, for example, in the twelfth-century

Fierbras where the giant initially tries to convince a wounded Olivier not to fight him, as

well as in the much later Galien le restore. In both these cases, the discursive preambles

are clearly designed to heighten the Christian's right over the Saracen's wrong. Despite

patently inferior physical statures, both Olivier and Galien prevail over their gigantesque

enemies because they are true believers; a metonymy of holy war. In all these cases of

mismatched strengths, the intercession of God is usually necessary for victory.

Charlemagne and the peers pray for Olivier, Galien himself addresses numerous prayers

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to the Lord. Their resulting dominance is therefore not entirely surprising, and is in

complete agreement with how the world should be. But in all these cases, God's

intervention is a confirmation of the Tightness of the cause and also a valediction of the

hero's inner strength, constituting an addition rather than a beginning. Man - indeed, the

male character - is still at the center of the action within a larger eschatological

framework, despite and because of the supernatural help he must receive in order to

triumph.

This scenario in Lion de Bourges goes through a makeover that is both humorous

and explicitly religious. Here also, the poet displaces the central masculine figure from

the poem by drawing attention to its absence. When Alais awakes in the morning, she

follows the angel's orders and dresses as a knight. She leaves the city and encounters the

giant who is sleeping. Seeing him, the duchess exclaims "Laisse [...] vecy povre jornee!

/ N'est pas euvre de femme ou me sus atornee!" (vv. 1,660-62), yet recognizes that she

must follow her ordained mission. Waking up, the giant disdainfully dismisses his

opponent, not because she is a woman (he does not know), but because she is not

properly attired.

Amis, dist li joiant, je feroie peschief

S'a ty me combaitoie ensement habergier.
Va faire que tu aie ung haubert dru maillier,
Plaites et acqueton bien cosut et taillier,
Baissinet et vizier entr'eus que bien t'an siet. (vv. 1,704-08)

In a typical male warrior versus formidable opponent scene, Lucien's emphasis on his

foe's shabby weapons would serve to highlight his valor. Here, on the other hand, the

encounter is replete with humor because Lucien's mocking focus on Alais's external

appearance reveals his misguidedness in not seeing pass the clothes, and not seeing the

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woman. Yet, Alais's poor attire underscores what is her real shield: her faith and her

divine mission. As it is her fate to defeat the giant, her victory is inevitable.

At the same time, the unusual fact that she has to step in and fight the Saracen

giant makes the absence of men palpable. 47 During the combat, she moans:

Biaulz Perre, Roy amant,

Se jou avoie si Herpin et mon anffan,
Contre ceu felon Turc me feroient garant. (vv. 1,772-74)

The entire fight between Alais and Lucien is thus predicated on the disappearance of

male relatives; Lion is growing up somewhere in Lombardy, and Herpin retired to a

hermitage after losing both his wife and his son. This implicit failure of the masculine is

once more emphasized by the overtly miraculous at the crux of the battle, when Alais is

almost crumbling under the blows and she cries to God, "Dieu de lassus, ne me vait

obliant!" (v. 1,821). Not exercising His power with discretion, God "y fist miraicle pour

la dame avenant" and sends a cloud to blind the giant whom Alais can then strike to her

heart's content. The battle scene against Lucien thus carefully superposes the feminine

nature of Alais, the absence of men, and the necessary presence of God. Up to this point,

female heroism is not posited as a valid alternative to its male model, but as a miraculous

anomaly predicated on the want of male, Christian supporters.

Alais's transvestitism cannot, at first, be read as an example of gender

performativity. Her initial cross-dressing as the kitchen boy Baliant was initially only a

disguise to escape male desire and to remain chaste for her husband Herpin. Indeed, this

47For a difference interpretation that emphasizes the religious aspect of the text, see
Martine Gallois, "Merveilleux et surnaturel dans 'Lion de Bourges,'" Theophilyon 3, no.
2 (1998): 519.

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is often the reason why women cross-dress in both literature and in history. 48 This

particular infraction against the injunction of Deuteronomy 22:5 that "A woman shall not

wear anything that pertains to a man" was even conceded by Thomas Aquinas. 49 In most

of these cases, the disguise is simply a disguise, as in Alais's earlier decision to be

concealed under male clothes. What is more revealing is how quickly Alais comes to

adopt the chivalric ethos once she has performed what is after all an initiatory rite of

manhood, the defeat of the monster. After her victory, Alais returns to the kitchen,

uninterested in the rewards promised by the emir, out of devotion for her husband,

"Laisse, dit la duchesse, de ceu je n'ait mestier; / San Herpin mon signour ne tanrai/ ja

denier" (vv. 1,914-15). Yet, when someone else claims to have slain the giant, she

develops a sense of ownership over her martial deed, "Bien me doit annoyer / Quant de

mon propre fait ressoit si telz loier" (vv. 1,946-47). Though initially presented as a

conduit of divine strength, Alais's martial deeds become her own and she adopts, little by

little, the behavior and personality of a man. She thus presents herself to the Emir and

challenges the impostor to judicial combat.

Masculine activities, euvre d'home, become a matter of learning, rather than

clothing or simply God's favor. As she is about to enter the fray against her enemy, Alais

once more laments her fate:

4K •
The motif is prevalent in medieval literature, and particularly exploited in the late epic.
See Monique Malfait-Dohet, "Fonction et typologie des transgressions sexuelles dans les
creations epiques du XIV e siecle," in Sexuelle Perversionen im Mittelalter, eds. Danielle
Bushinger and Wolfgang Spiewok (Greifswald: Reineke-Verlag, 1994), 127-29. Of
course, it is also the explanation for most of the hagiographic cross-dressing.

49See Hotchkiss, Clothes Make the Man, 49-68, and Schibanoff, "True Lies," 41, who
quotes a passage from the Summa theologiae (2a2ae, 2, vol. 44, p.239) justifying certain
cases of cross-dressing.

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 Laisse, dit la duchesse, comment la chose va,
Car je n'ait pas apris, ne mez cors ne l'usait,
Le mestier ne l'ouvraige que faire me faurait! (vv. 2,025-27)

And

A loy d'omme a i t rengner lontant en ce pays;

Trop me vient au contraire car ne l'avoie apris;
Maix il covient issir de ceu c'ons ait empris. (vv. 2,029-30)

This apprentissage is precisely what takes place in the battle, and Alais is transformed

from a woman wearing man's clothes for her virtue's sake into a cross-dressed woman

who behaves and passes as a knight and who adopts the trappings and attitudes of the

category. After she defeats the lying knight, Alais is even made chamberlain and

seneschal of the Emir of Toledo, and as such leads a sortie against Marsile's forces that

are still assembled outside the city. Her victory over the giant had already placed her

implicitly in the company of heroes, and now her leading the charge against Marsile's

forces draws a line between Alais and the greatest of the epic paladins, Roland, thus

placing the biologically different hero on the generic continuum of the epic. As a

seneschal riding at the front of the host, she pushes Roland's foe back but, the poet

explains, "Mais depues reconquist au trenchant de l'espee / Toleltte et le pays per vertut

esprouvee" (vv. 2,288-89).

Alais is then progressively assimilated into the pantheon of heroes, a precursor of

Roland in the fight against paganism in Spain, and she becomes a knight, through deeds

and disguise, in her own right. It will not surprise the reader to learn that these

achievements create a new set of problems for Alais: the emir's daughter, Florie, falls

madly in love with her. This is, as Valerie Hotchkiss reminds us, a common element in

narratives involving female cross-dressing, most famously in the Roman de Silence, as

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well as in Yde et Olive and Tristan de Nanteuil that will be discussed below. 50 In almost

all of these cases, the woman pursuing the cross-dressed character displays an overtly

aggressive sexuality that manifests itself in the forms of false accusations (Silence) or

death threats (Tristan de Nanteuil, Lion de Bourges). Hotchkiss points out that "disguise

not only inverts cultural gender roles but also confuses or reorients sexuality." 51 Yet, 1

would argue, disguise does not so much invert cultural gender roles as it blurs differences

and categories, while at the same time reinforcing them by attempting to adhere to a

definite model. The gender roles remain firmly in place, and the problem lies precisely in

their successful enactments. The poet does not, then, draw on ambiguities, but rather on

the fixity of categories. With respect to Silence, for example, Simon Gaunt has wittily

summed up the paradox of the text, "Here we have a romance in which the king ends up

marrying his favorite knight and in which the good woman (Silence) is preferred to the

bad woman (the queen) because she was a good man!" 52 Our text does not exhibit the

same playful sophistication.

By growing into her clothes and into her role as a knight, Alais has increasingly

assumed the appropriate persona and attitudes of a young bacheler. Admitting to her

success, Alais recognizes the feelings brewing in Florie and laments the delicate situation

in which she finds herself. But what is most compelling is that she seems to contemplate

a union with Florie as an actual - if remote - possibility.

Mais se g'estoie ung hons, tost seroit [Florie] rapaisie:

50 Hotchkiss, Clothes Make the Man, 105

51 Idem.

52
Simon Gaunt, "Straight Minds/Queer Wishes in Old French Hagiography: La vie de
Sainte Euphrosine," GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 1, no. 4 (1995): 450.

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 Son pucellaige aroie per Dieu le filz Marie,
Et l'emmenroie o moy por mener druerie;
Mais il n'est pais ansi, si ne lou ferai/ mie.
Dieu, vueilliez moy garder mon corps de villonnie! (vv. 2,558-62)

Later on, Alais is more explicit about considering the turn her story might take.

Se la condicion avoie du servir

Et elle se volcist a ma loy convertir,
Moult vollantier yroie acomplir son dezir,
Car elle est moult trez belle pour son cor abaudir;
Maix je ne li pues faire ceu qu'elle vuelt souffrir. (vv. 2,491-94)

It is, of course, tempting to analyze these two passages in terms of homosexual desire, or

at least its suggestion. Contrary to Silence, who never answers Eufeme's unbridled lust

with similar longing, Alais recognizes Florie's beauty. She furthermore admits that were

she a man, had she "la condicion [...] de servir," she would happily acquiesce to Florie, if

the Saracen princess converted to Christianity. 53 Although the possibility of lesbian sex

is evoked, it is equally important to underline how Alais's attitude toward Florie

constitutes an almost natural progression of her adoption of a masculine identity, one

defined by literary conventions (from hero to lover). As she has learned to wield martial

weapons and act like a knight on the battlefield, so is she assuming proper masculine

behavior toward Florie, with the obvious caveat that she is ill-equipped to fulfill this

particular task. Alais's indecision before Florie is thus not so much an example of

sexuality being reoriented or confused, but a symptom of the fluidity of the male identity,

and of the suggestion of the prevalence of Noreture over Nature in the formation of the

male hero.

53For lawful sex to occur, a conversion to Christianity always has to take place lest the
heroes face dire consequences, as in Huon de Bordeaux.

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 The conflict between gender expectation and biological sex cannot ultimately be

resolved, and it thus leads to a return to normal, so to speak. Facing Florie's threat, Alais

reveals that she is a woman, although she still pretends to be a converted Saracen, and

disrobes herself to prove it. But once she resumes wearing female clothes, she still

remains an object of desire as the emir is instantly taken by her beauty and decides to

marry her. Desperate, Alais prays to be saved from this infidelity to her husband and an

angel advises her to leave the castle and become a beggar woman in the city, an

injunction that she promptly obeys. It would seem that there is a definite return to the

normative with Alais's revelation and her steadfast desire to remain a chaste woman.

The poet might have toyed with gender roles, but the play is now over. There would

definitely be an end to ambiguities and plays were it not for this peculiar facet of the text:

the exact same sequence with the very same protagonists is replicated later on in the text,

with Herpin de Bourges in the role of the jeune premier. After leaving his hermitage,

Herpin had entered the service of the pope, been betrayed, travelled in the Mediterranean,

converted Cyprus, and after another treason, ended up in the prison of the Emir of

Toledo. There he befriends Florie, as Balliant/Alais had done. He also decides to take up

the defense of the Saracen realms against, once more, the forces of Marsile, led by

another giant named, unimaginatively, Orrible who hopes to wed Florie. Herpin and a

small band of Christian knights attack the besieging army, though they are greatly

outnumbered. In the midst of battle, as they are about to be overwhelmed, they pray, and

God answers their plea by sending "saint Georges a teste armee, / Saint Jaicque et saint

Domins" (vv. 17,972-73). As it had happened with Balliant, Florie falls madly in love

with Herpin and attempts to coerce him into marrying her, even accepting to convert to

206
Christianity, despite Herpin's insistence that he is already married. Herpin is forced to

accept and seems doomed to bigamy. It is only through the intervention of Alais, who

comes to the castle on the wedding day and sings the song of her life, thus prompting

recognition, that the forced marriage is averted.

The typology of both Herpin's and Alais's story in Toledo is, for all intents and

purposes, the same. The befriending of the princess is followed by an act of military

valor benefitting from God's intercession that makes the hero appear all the more

remarkable and desirable, culminating in a form of sexual persecution at Florie's hands,

which is only resolved by a revelation (or an actual disrobing). This extended and

miraculous sequence of Alais's cross-dressing is thus superimposed on the actions of an

actual man, her husband no less, and both experience similar successes and shortcomings.

Lion de Bourges does not then so much invert sexual roles as it calls into question the

very concept of what the epic hero can be: a woman? A man? At the end, it seems that

the answer does not matter since both genders experience heroism in the same way, with

the same supplemental help of God, and with an almost identical failure to protect

themselves against the sexual desire of others. We find, once more, a valorization of the

chivalric ethos by people of both genders and an undeniable fealty to the ideals of epic

heroism (God's protection, pride in one's deeds, etc.) while at the same time witnessing a

crisis of that very category. As the role of the male hero is being tried out, or so it

appears, on different characters, it keeps producing the same unsatisfactory results with

neither man nor woman able to fulfill all of its promises.

Yde, or Phallus Ex Nihilo

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 Heroic actions can thus be performed by either a man or a woman - provided that

the right conditions are met. Transvestitism, however, is either almost always framed as

a supplement to the normative, or the normative quickly reestablishes itself. Despite the

traces of destabilizing unease she leaves behind, the cross-dressed woman returns to her

"feminine" role as a wife and mother, or daughter, once the masculine focal point of the

poem finally returns to the scene. Discussing male cross-dressing in medieval literature,

Ad Putter remarks that "[bjehind the transvestite joke lies a deep conservatism, for

getting it requires our acceptance of the incompatibility of the two sexes [,..]." 54 In the

examples of female cross-dressing discussed above, there is very little trace of humor as

the pathos of the deeds performed overwhelms the joke. And yet, there is a definite

amount of conservatism in this inevitable return to normal, this re-absorption and

dismantling of female heroism.

In two late epics, however, the road back to the normative association between

male and violence leads in a rather perplexing direction. In Yde et Olive and another

episode of Tristan de Nanteuil, simple male gender performance is not enough to ensure

the survival of the characters (Yde and Blanchandine), the preservation of the feudal

family unit, or even the family unit tout court. Something more has to happen; a final

consecration has to be given to the woman who has lived as a man if the narrative is to

continue and the epic action is to be resolved. The female character has to become a man

in order to survive and to perpetuate the epic legacy, even at the biological level in the

form of children they sire. Or more precisely, the poems once more have to rely on the

54Ad Putter, "Transvestite knights in medieval life and literature," in Becoming Male in
the Middle Ages, eds. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler (New York: Garland
Publishing, 1997), 280. Male cross-dressers receive a starkly different reception in the
Middle Ages as the practice was connected to fear of "effeminacy."

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supernatural, on the deus ex machina, which in these cases appears under the surprising

variation of the phallus ex nihilo. As we will see, the ultimate necessity of the gender-

reassignment miracle in the narrative and in the ideological framework of both texts

participates in a more general suggestion of a lack, here dramatized by the penis's

absence, and fracture in the late epic world. Reverting constantly to a normative

paradigm in the construction of their heroes, the trouveres nonetheless underscore the

artificiality of heroism by resorting to dramatic literary interventions to resolve conflicts

between behaviors, actions, and society.

As I have briefly mentioned above, the impetus for a woman to cross-dress often

resides in her desire to escape sexual persecution and/or a bad marriage. The threat of

sexual violence is indeed the starting-point of many medieval texts in which the woman

flees, thus setting into motion the quest for her recovery by male relatives, and the

absence of the woman becomes itself a symbol of political disintegration as it implies the

impossibility of regeneration. 55 The flight of woman may be constitutive of the narrative,

but at the same time its very necessity implies that something has gone amiss, something

that ought to be restored and repaired. Yde et Olive (a continuation of Huon de

Bordeaux) offers us precisely such an example of the crumbling of the most basic rules

governing society. The motivation for the beginning of Yde's adventures is indeed one

of the most serious taboos (as well as an "alarmingly popular" motif of medieval

55Dolfait-Mahet, "Fonction et typologie," 140, is keen to see the entire late epic as
conditioned by these failures of generation, but her analysis rests on a selective
highlighting of sexual oddities in the poems she considered. Her conclusion that sexual
perversions are "Pessence de rhero'fsme epique au XlVe siecle" seems like an
overstatement.

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literature according to Elizabeth Archibald): the threat of father-daughter incest. 56 Yde's

father, Florent, lost his wife in childbirth and as Yde grew into a beautiful young woman

resembling her mother, he became inflamed with lust and love for her. 57 Rather than

suffering in silence, Florent peremptorily informs his council that he intends to marry

Yde, producing nothing but consternation and horror in those around him. His faithful

adviser Sorbarres warns him that "A ceste loi que Dix nous a donnee / Dedens infer sera

tame dampnee." 58 Florent's planned erotic transgression does not only have spiritual

consequences for him but political ramifications for the whole kingdom. Discussing the

issue of literary and familial lineage and incest in the poem, Nancy Vine Durling has

drawn attention to "a particular social dimension of the problem: youths (presumably of

56 Elizabeth Archibald, Incest and the Medieval Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2001), 181. Archibald's is a definitive and elaborate study of the role of incest in
literature and culture. The most well-known text making use of the threat of incest as a
narrative framework is Philippe de Remy's La Manekine where the entire poem is
dependent upon this original sin. We also find it in the fourteenth-century La Belle
Helene de Constantinople and Lion de Bourges, which also reuse the tale of the "Maiden
Without Hand." For a detailed analysis of the motif of incest in the late epic in particular,
see Claude Roussel, Confer de geste au XlVe siecle. Inspiration folklorique et ecriture
epique dans La Belle Helene de Constantinople (Geneva: Droz, 1998), 142-186.

57It is interesting to note that in so many poems (Lion de Bourges and Florent et
Octavien for examples) in which the sons resemble the fathers, this resemblance
facilitates the resolution of the narrative. Thus, a mother will recognize her husband's
features in a young man who will then turn out to be her long-lost son, prompting the
reunification of the family. On the other hand, the resemblance between (dead) mothers
and daughters often acts as the catalyst for the sequence of separation as the father
develops a sexual attraction toward his daughter.

Esclarmonde, Clarisse et Florent, Yde et Olive: Drei Fortsetzungen der Chanson von
Huon de Bordeaux, ed. Max Schweigel (Marburg: N.G. Elwert'Sche
Verlagsbuchhanglung, 1889), vv. 6,362-64. All quotes are from this edition, but I have
also consulted the unfortunately unpublished edition of Barbara Anna Brewka. See her
Esclarmonde, Clarisse et Florent, Yde et Olive I, Croissant, Yde et Olive II, Huon et les
Geants, Sequels to Huon de Bordeaux as Contained in Turin ms. L.II.14: An Edition
(Nashville: University of Tennessee, 1977) [Unpublished dissertation].

210
incestuous unions) will be disinherited and young women will be deemed orphans;

genealogical confusion is the result of incest." 59 Florent's desire thus renders an absolute

disservice to the realm in forgoing the possibility of a legitimate heir. With more

urgency, the poet emphasizes that Florent's behavior will lay waste to the whole

kingdom:

Dix pour coi a li rois tele pensee

Dont tante dame iert encore esplouree
& tante terre & destruite & gastee
Tante jouente en iert deshyretee
Tante pucelle orphenine clamee! (vv. 6,379-83)

By disrupting the social and divine laws prohibiting incest, Florent shakes the entire

social and moral edifice, disturbing the peace and inviting war. The real victims of war

in the epic are more often than not men. 60 The survivors, those who gain no glory but

only sorrow, tend to be women, the dame, jouente, pucelle, etc., who lose the protection

of men and who become, once more, objects of persecution. In the perverse yet coherent

circular logic of the text, Florent's victimization of his daughter, his failure as a father,

creates more female victims and more examples of men who are inadequate to protect

them.

The disorderly masculinity of her father puts Yde in an impossible bind that can

only be resolved by a radical solution. In Philippe de Remy's Manekine, the heroine

chooses to cut off her arm so as to no longer resemble her mother, thus preempting her

father's desire but inciting his rage. Helene, in La Belle Helene de Constantinople,

59Nancy Vine Durling, "Rewriting Gender: Yde et Olive and Ovidian Myth," Romance
Languages Annual 1 (1990): 258.

60Notable exceptions can be found, however. One can think of Marsent, Bernier's
mother, in Raoul de Cambrai, who is killed along with the nuns in the fire set by Raoul's
men to the monastery where she had retired.

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chooses a more modest course of actions - flight. 61 Yde's solution combines the two

notions: transformation and flight. Robert L. A. Clark even suggests that "it is possible to

read Yde as a sort of anti-Manekine." 62 She undergoes a self-transformation that will

protect her not only from her father's but also from other men's desire: she cross-dresses

as a man. After Florent has proclaimed his intention to marry her, and left her no choice

but to comply, Yde retreats to her room where she bathes. In a scene structured by

symbolism of rebirth, Yde emerges naked from the tub and instead of putting on

woman's clothes, she "Dras domme vest de riens ne si detrie / En guize domme scst bien

aparillie" (vv. 6,524-35). 63 Under the clothes, the young powerless girl, "Jouenete est de

XV ans tous entiers" (v. 6,482), disappears to become a young man who can ride through

the night. As Archibald states, "[t]he Flight from the Incestuous Father can be read as an

important personal and social rite of passage gone horribly wrong." 64 The clothes, the

"dras domme," are the focus of the transformation, a fabric-thin difference that the poet

will emphasize over and over again throughout the poem.

61 Helene's story is, however, infinitely more complicated as she also has her arm severed
later on in the poem, in which the motif of the Maiden Without Hand figures
proeminently. See Claude Roussel, Conter de geste au XIV* siecle, 141-186, 207-25.

62Robert L. A. Clark, "A Heroine's Sexual Itinerary: Incest, Transvestitism, and Same-
Sex Marriage in Yde et Olive," in Gender Transgressions: Crossing the Normative
Barrier in Old French Literature, ed. Karen J. Taylor (New York: Garland Publishing,
1998), 91.

63The bath is clearly charged with symbols of rebirth. Its absence from the Ovidian myth
of Iphis and lanthe led Keith V. Sinclair to discount a direct Ovidian influence, in favor
of Indo-European influence, on the sex change in both Yde et Olive and Tristan de
Nanteuil, which he considers certainly related. See his Tristan de Nanteuil: Thematic
Infrastructures and Literary Creation (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1983), 98-104.

64 Archibald, Incest and the Medieval Imagination, 159.

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 However, the initial disguise is only one step toward Yde's adoption and

fashioning of a male identity. Still "B/en est vestue a guize de garchon" (v. 6,548), she

Accate ot cauces & caperon

Braies de lin si beles ne vit on
Espee ot chainte & si porte I baston. (vv. 6,549-51)

Having sold her horse, she buys more props in order to become a more convincing young

man. Yet, Yde's resourcefulness also contains a great deal of inventiveness, or even self-

invention. As Jacqueline de Weever rightfully points out, Yde reinvents herself

completely as a young squire, as a bacheler, in her self-presentation to others and her life:

"In the Yde story, however, the poet appears to cast his heroine deliberately in the mold

of the young hero, taking her through the stages of squire, knight, and finally, general." 65

Far from continuing to flee and attempting to live anonymously like so many literary

persecuted women (Alais was an example of this before her divinely ordained cross-

dressing), Yde adopts the life and narrative of a young hero in the making. Upon her first

meeting with an Alemans in the imperial territory where her exile has taken her, she lets

him know that:

Sire dist ele a celui cuip laira

Seruice kier plus de XV jours a
En Arragon«e ai serui grant piecha
Or est cis mors qui ici mamena
Bien sai seruir ne sai qui moi prendra
Mener sommier v garder I ceual
& si auient quen bataille on alast
Piour de moi je croi i auera. (vv. 6,575-81)

The pucelle who had "vestus dras domwe pour paour" (v. 6,541) now finds herself

making the threat, the warrior's boasts. Having thus assumed both the garb of a man and

65Jacqueline de Weever, "The Lady, the Knight, and the Lover: Androgyny and
Integration in La Chanson d'Yde et Olive" Romanic Review 82, no. 4 (1991): 373

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a man's story, she finalizes the change by altering her name. When the Alemans asks for

her name, she is no longer Yde, but Ydes, although the poet will continue to use her

"real" name in the narration until her biological sex is finally changed. The Yde author

takes a definite amount of pleasure in reminding the reader that Yde is a woman. As

Michele Perret and Robert L. A. Clark show, the text "maintains, on the linguistic level, a

kind of playful tension between Yde's assumed and hidden sex, a tension which can

result in startling and comic juxtapositions." 66 The justly oft-quoted example of this

occurs during Yde's first skirmish. Spurring her horse and entering battle for the first

time, she throws her opponent off his mount by piercing him with her spear, leading the

poet to conclude the episode with the comical double-entendre "Yde la bele sa lance

resaca / Ains mais sor home a nul jour ne hwrta" (vv. 6,621-22). The emphasis on Yde's

beauty, la bele, so close to the obvious phallic imagery of the spear, can hardly fail to

make one smile. At the same time, the playfulness is never innocent as it highlights the

disjunction between real and assumed identity and consequently draws attention to the

performative nature of masculinity, even to the ease with which it can be accomplished.

Many critics have understandably devoted their attention to the potential

transgressiveness of Yde's cross-dressing and gender performance. However, there has

been significantly less emphasis put on the almost boring predictability with which the

story unfolds, with the notable exception of de Weever, who maps out how Yde's

itinerary conforms to literary typology. 67 Yde does not act like just any man, but like the

young heroes whose stories have been the subject of the two preceding chapters. This

66 Clark, "A Heroine's Sexual Itinerary," 94, following Perret, "Travesties et

transsexuelles," 333.

67 de Weever, "The Lady, the Knight, and the Lover," 373-77, 381.

214
close association of Yde with a conventional expression of masculine youth does not only

obscure biological differences between the sexes, but reinforces the knightly ideology as

well as the generic affiliation of the poem: whatever the gender of the hero is, we are still

dealing with the same kind of hero. Yet, the persistent attachment to a proper code of

conduct by a woman while it has sorely been forgotten by others draws attention to the

absence of virtue among men while simultaneously reaffirming manly virtues. From the

moment of re-naming and self-reinvention onward, Yde/Ydes will not only be clothed as

man, but will also behave as a typical literary young knight who desires to live by the

strength of his/her sword and remain faithful to the chivalric ethos. This notion of Yde's

chivalric ethos is striking as it comes to condition everything that she does as Ydes.

Thus, when Yde enters the service of the Alemans (after giving him the flattering resume

quoted above), she does not do so to begin a life of glory-seeking, but because she had

overheard her new master discussing plans to attack the Roman emperor Oton and she

aims to warn him. Similarly, when she encounters a band of thieves, she refuses to join

them partly because thieving is not a noble endeavor for a man-at-arms, which recalls the

above discussion of Geoffroi de Charny's views on chivalry. The standards remain the

same for everyone.

Yde's loyalty to the chivalric ethos leads her to utter statements that muddy the

waters between the performative and the natural. Yde never shies away from a fight. And

whatever weapon she wields, she always outperforms her opponents. She defeats a thief

in hand-to-hand combat, breaking all his teeth and cleaving his head in two like a proper

epic knight; she cuts off the arm of another with a sword; she excels later on in the battle

against the enemies of the emperor Oton and even kills the emir. But her valor as a

215
warrior is not only predicated on having the proper attire and equipment. In a play on (or

perhaps a straightforward reproduction of) the young's man desire to act bravely so as to

emulate his forefathers (we will recall the importance of the family name in Tristan de

Nanteuil), Yde declares, "Bien doi auoir prouece & hardement / Qwant je sui fille au rice

roi Florent" (vv. 6,762-63). 6X Earlier, she had refused to become a thief in part because

"ce nest pas courtoisie / De larrechin ne me mellerai mie / Ains not larron en tout ma

lignie" (vv. 6,711-13). This could be seen as the closest the poet ever comes to

elaborating on the topos of the debate between nature and culture, and yet both terms are

conspicuously absent. In the Roman de Silence, the cross-dressed heroine is the locus of

the dispute between the two, and there is a clear (though temporary) rejection of nature

(and the behaviors and activities it mandates) in favor of culture (and the life it offers).

Here, however, Yde appears to refuse to consider things in black and white, as a matter of

opposition between two distinct, gendered paths of actions. Yde refers simultaneously to

the masculine qualities of prouece and hardement and to her status as the daughter of a

king - a slightly unusual pairing. The transgressiveness of the cross-dressing is thus, in

part, subsumed by the fealty to the devotion to the lineage, and this surprising gender

performance is cast as an extension of this very ideal. As Diana Watt points out, "[i]t is

never entirely clear to what extent Yde's masculine and feminine qualities are either

'natural' or performed." 69 Performed because of the disguise, the name change and the

story-telling are necessary, but natural on account of the apparently direct link between

68We have previously seen that heredity was one of the decisive factors in Jourdaine de
Blayes becoming a military leader.

69 DianeWatt, "Behaving Like a Man? Incest, Lesbian Desire, and Gender Play in Yde et
Olive and its Adaptations," Comparative Literature 50, no. 4 (Fall 1998): 275.

216
her actions and her bloodline. Even though Florent has proven a less than stalwart

upholder of the family line (to say nothing of family values), the daughter he threatened

still espouses the virtues he has forgotten.

By focusing on her biological and family origins rather than on her sex, the poet

assuages the tension between Yde's cross-dressing and normative gender expectations, as

they are both placed under the umbrella of the hyper-normative discourse of moral

obligations to the lineage. In other words, notwithstanding the questioning of knightly

masculinity, which Yde literally embodies by reproducing, and the destructive model of

masculine aggression portrayed by Florent, the promotion of masculine virtues and the

emulation of the lineage appear to remain the ideological focus of the poem, as in any

other chanson de geste. "Rather than expressing despair at being the daughter, not son, of

Florent, [Yde] is seeking inspiration by reminding herself of her own noble birth," as

Watt notes. 70 And yet, Yde is no longer Florent's daughter since she progressively

becomes, with more and more assurance, a full-grown man. In fact, not only does she

seem to evolve, but the story she tells about herself also undergoes significant changes,

blurring the distinction between the natural, the performed, and the literary. This is

developed further when Yde finally arrives in Rome to warn the emperor of the

impending threat of invasion. Upon entering the hall, she is asked the usual questions by

the king, "Dont estes vous amis & de quell gent / De quell pais & qui sont vo parents"

(vv. 6,791-92), and she answers with the following fibs:

Sire dist Yde vous lorres errawment

Escuiers sui nai de terre I arpent
En Alemengne ai serui longuement. (vv. 6,794-96)

70Watt, "Behaving like a Man?" 278; see also de Weever, "The Lady, the Knight, and
the Lover," 379.

217
And

Sire dist ele on mapelle Yde

De Terrascoigne car la ai jou ante
Jou sui sousins au rice parente
Conte Aimeris & Nambles li barbes
Pres apartient a lEscot Guillemer
Mais banis sui powr les parents Hardre
Puis ai je mowt de grans maus endures, (vv. (6, 818-24)

This new narrative turns out to be the story of countless epic heroes, from the twelfth-

century Aiol to the fourteenth-century Herpin de Bourges. Yde is no longer a young

squire from Spain, but a valiant knight exiled from the Carolingian court, like so many

others, by the treachery of the lineage of Ganelon. 71 Like the addition of the -s to Yde so

as to become Ydes, her account to the king is half-true. As the granddaughter of Huon de

Bordeaux, she is indeed related to all of the great epic families - at least as much as all

these late epic heroes can be. And being banished by Hardre's schemes is common

enough to be credible. Yde not only plays the part of a knight; she fashions herself a

literary type.

The more Yde elaborates on her story, the more she seems to inhabit her role. Her

self-assimilation even takes a physical shape as in the middle of her introduction to the

emperor, he looks at her and "Mout le vit grant & mewbru & forme" (v. 6,807). Once

again, a knight is conceived solely as a masculine entity, and the transformation of Yde is

accomplished through verbal means, or so it seems. What she says about Ydes, the

character that she creates, becomes increasingly aligned with her physical appearance.

We might wonder if there is not a hint of parody in Yde's accumulation of the normative

71Hardre appears in Ami et Amile and Gaydon among others and always plays the role of
the arch-traitor.

218
trappings of proper chivalric behavior. When the emperor asks her another question,

"Qwe ses tu faire?" she answers with the following knightly credo:

Premiers sai bien Jesucrist aourer

& a prodowme mout grant honor porter
Le poure gent de mont auoir donwer
Et lorguillous par paroles mater
& le prodomme enuers moi accoster
Au grant besong I co«fanon porter
& se che vient a bataille assembler
Piour de moi porries vous mener
Bien sai I cop emploier & donner
Son ma mesfait bien men sai deporter
& mon courouch dedens mon cuer celer
& si sai bien mon ceual establer
& estrillier & a liaue mener
Bien sai a table le mengier aporter. (vv. 6,843-58)

However, these are not mere words because they represent, with some degree of

accuracy, Yde's actions throughout the text, each episode bringing her closer to knightly,

masculine "perfection." This exhaustively constructed new character, this Ydes who

emerges naked from the bath and puts on man's clothes and adopts a young squire's

story, finally stands as the epitome of proper behavior, correct virtues, and heroism. Like

all the other female cross-dressers, she is wise in council, courteous at court, and fierce in

battle. Unfortunately, Yde will also be victim of her success in passing as a man, like her

counterparts in other texts. The martial inevitably leads to the marital.

The emperor is so taken by Yde's martial and manly virtues that he betrothes her

to his only daughter, Olive. At last, the fact that Yde is not a man will present a tangible

material problem and a patent absence, since as she laments, she "Na membre nul qua li

puis abiter" (v. 7,064). But Yde still prefers to face the eventual problems this union

might cause rather than reveal the truth about her female identity because she fears the

violence that may be perpetrated against her by the inhabitants of Rome, and the

219
vcngcancc that her father may exact upon her for fleeing. She thus marries Olive, "Si

face Dix de moi sa volonte" (v. 7,091). After the wedding, Yde equivocates for two

weeks, but Olive grows impatient and Yde finally has to confess the truth about her

biological sex. Contrary to what one might expect, Olive accepts the situation, paving

the way to what might perhaps be called a lesbian relationship, "Ensamble o vous

prettdrai ma destinee" (v. 7,184), although there is no direct mention of sex taking

place. 72

Olive's understanding evokes the possibility that Yde's cross-dressing might not

only prove disruptive at the level of gender identity, but also that it may entirely

discontinue the line of succession in Rome as their union would inevitably remain

childless. Despite her valor in combat, her wisdom in council, her upholding of the

Christian faith and so on, Yde is lacking because she cannot ultimately fulfill all the roles

that a knight has to play. This will quickly become known through the actions of an

eavesdropper, who is reminiscent of the losengier of romance. Furious, the emperor and

the populace promise to burn both Yde and Olive, for the emperor's daughter is as guilty

of deception as Yde. As Diana Watt insists, it is not such much that their fury is the

result of moral outrage at the implied lesbianism of the situation, but "fear about the

73
consequences for the realm of an unnatural union."

72 The question of lesbianism in the poem has obviously been remarked upon. I shall refer
the reader to Watt, "Behaving Like a Man? Incest" and Clark, "A Heroine's Sexual
Itinerary" for this particular issue.

73Diane Watt, "Behaving Like a Man?," 273. Peggy McCracken makes a similar point
about Silence, "The medieval transvestite romance presents a profoundly troubling
spectacle to an aristocratic society founded and maintained by dynastic marriage and
succession because ambiguous gender threatens the disruption of dynastic structures - a
woman dressed as a man cannot engender a child." See her "The Boy Who Was a Girl:

220
 The day of the judgment is set; Yde will have to undress for a bath to prove that

she is a man. But as the assembly screams for blood, an angel descends from Heaven and

addresses Oton.

Au roi Oton a dit tout cois estes

Jesus te mande li rois de mai'ste
Que tut e naignes & si lai chou ester
Car hou te di en bone verite
Bon cheualier a v vassal Yde
Dix li enuoie & donne par bonte
Tout chou cuns hom a de sumanite
Lai le garchon dist li angles aler
II vous auoit dit voir mais cest passe
Hui main iert feme or vns home carnes
Dix a partout puissance & poeste. (vv. 7,225-35) 74

From then on, Yde is Yde, having been made fully a man by God, who sent her "par

bonte" a penis, "Tout chou cuns hom a de sumanite." This manly consecration has been

seen from slightly different perspectives. Perret suggests that "Yde est recompensee de

sa vertu" for she has fled the incestuous desire of her father; Clark, on the other hand,

Reading Gender in the Roman de Silence," Romanic Review 85, no. 4 (November 1994):
517.

74 In Tristan de Nanteuil, the transformed Blanchandine will be said to have a "membre

qu'estoit gros et quarres" (v. 16,357). It is interesting to follow the diffusion of the text
after the Middle Ages so as to see the changing attitudes toward the miraculous as it
relates to sex-change. In a rather faithful prose rendering from 1683, L 'Histoire de Huon
de Bordeaux, Pair de France, Due de Guienne (Troyes: Gabriel Briden, 1683), the sex
change is preserved and is said to be a great miracle. In a slight modernization of that
later text from 1821, however, something quite strange occurs. The text follows with a
great deal of accuracy the 1683 version. But at the crucial moment where the angel is
supposed to descend and rescue Yde from her death-sentence, nothing happens and she is
burned. With Yde gone, it would be difficult for the narrative to continue. The
modernizer solves this self-created problem by pulling something out of thin air himself:
a new character who is for all intents and purposes still Yde, except that he is not. The
passage is worth quoting: "Olive, apres avoir perdue Ide, fut mariee a un Prince qui
devint Empereur. On le nommera Ide, meme fils du Roi Florent." Histoire de Huon de
Bordeaux, Pair de France, Due de Guienne, 2 vols., (Montbeliard: T.-F. Deckherr,
Imprimeur, 1821), 2: 89.

221
points out that the reward seems to be "more for her manly valor than for her feminine

virtue." 75 Whatever the exact cause of the holy sex change, it is undeniable that this

transformation completes and expands the problematization of gender identity in the

poem as Yde's manly behavior is confirmed and condoned by a divine agent. Yet at the

same time there is a return to the norm, the "change of gender allows a restitution of non-

transgressive sexuality, culminating in natural, patrilineal succession and assuring the

stability not only of Huon's line, but also the continuation of the cycle itself," as Nancy

Durling Vine notes. 76 While we can never forget that Ydes was Yde before being a man

and that the link between biological sex and gender identity has been temporarily

disrupted, there seems to be a reinforcement of the status quo. 77 Men are men and

women are women, and God will take care of those who fall in between.

As the beginning of the poem and Florent's disruptive incestuous desire indicate,

the status quo is not as stable as it might appear. Normative sexuality might have been

restored, but one wonders if the idea and ideal of the masculine hero have escaped

unscathed. Throughout the text, the poet has been careful to fashion Yde as a perfect

representative of the chivalric class, with the appropriate clothes, with pride in her

lineage (despite the threat of incest), the same martial valor and the same wisdom as one

would hope to find in the most accomplished epic character. All this would nonetheless

have ended in abject failure, at the stake no less, if the Christian merveilleux had not

75 Perret, "Transvesties et transsexuelles," 330, Clark, "A Heroine's Sexual Itinerary," 97.

76 Durling, "Rewriting gender," 259, and Watt, "Behaving like a Man?," 274.

77De Weever, "The Lady, the Knight, and the Lover," 383. See also Perret, "Travesties et
transsexuelles," 329.

222
intervened and brought its necessary supplement (in the spectacular guise of phallus ex

nihilo) so that Yde could become the knight that she was "supposed" to be.

Beyond the fascinating questions of gender and homosexuality, we can discover

in Yde et Olive one of the most dramatized examples of the lack that so many late epic

78
characters must confront. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that we should encounter

a character like Yde in the Huon de Bordeaux cycle in which characters benefit

constantly from the help of the merveilleux in order to achieve their goals and complete

their quests. 79 Huon himself had seen his status as a Carolingian knight and his life

threatened by a failure of the feudal system, which had to be rectified by the merveilleux

Auberon. On a slightly different register, Esclarmonde in the eponymous poem

undergoes a transformation from mortal to fairy in a ritualized baptism so that she can

become Huon's queen in Faerie. In Croissant, the poem following Yde et Olive, Ydes'

and Olive's son is exiled from the city of Rome after spending all of his fortune in an

excess of largesse and Christian charity. His rights as emperor will only be reinstated

after an angel informs him of the location of a large treasure destined for him alone that

allows him to buy back his former position. The cycle is full of characters who are, in

some way or another, insufficient. Yde's outstanding success in performing as a knight

78It is Clark's assertion, "A Heroine's Sexual Itinerary," 102, that the main function of
cross-dressing in the text is "the creation of discursive spaces around the linked themes of
incest and sodomy."

79For the cyclical relationship between the different poems, see Francis Suard "Le cycle
en vers de Huon de Bordeaux; Etude des relations entre les trois temoins fran9ais," in La
chanson de geste et le mythe carolingien: melanges Rene Louis publics par ses
collegues, ses amis et ses eleves a I'occasion de son 75 e anniversaire (Saint-Pere-sous-
Vezelay: Musee archeologique regional, 1982): II: 1035-1050; and Dominique
Cazanave, D 'Esclarmonde a Croissant: Huon de Bordeaux, I 'epique medieval et I 'esprit
de suite (Besan^on : Presses universitaires de Franche-Comte, 1997), 30-55.

223
may only be the most elaborate discussion of the ultimate incompleteness of the epic

hero. The cycle of Huon de Bordeaux, expounding at length upon the failures of the epic

world to be properly ordered, foregrounds the necessity of the supplement as the

condition for the restoration of its internal order. Having created untenable disorderly

worlds full of all-too-human failures (Charlemagne's vengefulness, Florent's lust, Otto's

anger, etc.), the writers of the cycle have to suggest supernatural (or literary) solutions.

Blanchandine, Blanchandin: Sex, Spirituality, and Friendship

The case of Blanchandine in Tristan de Nanteuil brings these different elements to

what could be termed their logical ad absurdum conclusion: the wholesale creation of a

new epic hero (even perhaps of a new family line) through the intercession of the

Christian merveilleux. We will recall that Blanchandine was Tristan's first lover with

whom he engendered Raimon, heir to the fief of Avignon. Following many adventures,

separations and reunifications, the Saracen princess ultimately converts and marries

Tristan. But to escape the city where the two were married, and to avoid recognition by

Blanchandine's Saracen relatives, Tristan decides that Blanchandine should dress as a

knight. The description of Blanchandine interestingly hints at the suggestion of

homoeroticism, or at the very least of desire expressed by a male for someone who

closely resembles another one. After helping Blanchandine dress and put on a sword "a

loy de chevalier" (v. 12,821) Tristan addresses his companion, pointing to Blanchandine

and jesting.

Et leur a dit: "Seigneur, regardes quel princier.

Je vourray, se Dieu plest, au vesper o lui coucher
Se lui apprenderay jouer d'aultre mestier." (vv. 12,824-6)

224
But the joke of the disguised Blanchandine's sex-appeal will soon be on Tristan. The two

leave the city with their companions and rejoin the camp of the Saracen queen Clarinde,

whom Tristan and Doon serve temporarily. Like almost all young women cross-dressers

(Silence, Alais, Yde, etc.), Blanchandine will inspire the desire of an aggressive woman,

this time Queen Clarinde, who is also her cousin. 80 Tristan and others in the know are

greatly amused by this infatuation. After receiving a declaration of love from Clarinde,

Blanchandine recounts it to her husband who "sy seigna sa fa^on, / Et puis en print a rire

81
dessoubz son chapperon" (vv. 13,089-90). Tristan, clearly not conscious of the

potential pitfalls of the situation, soon departs to rescue his father and grandmother who

are prisoners in another city and leaves his wife behind with Clarinde.

The queen becomes more and more insistent, and at the urging of her council, she

coerces Blanchandine to marry her. Blanchandine manages to postpone the

consummation of the marriage by arguing that it would be improper to have intercourse

82
with a Saracen and that Clarinde has to be baptized before they can sleep together. As

80 Georges, with some lack of awareness of feminist criticism, writes that the "volonte de
Clarinde d'imposer bain et denudation a Blanchandin(e) est done un abus de pouvoir, a
connotation masculine. En depit de son deguisement, Blanchandine reste placee en
situation de soumission feminine." Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 571. For a more
interesting view of female sexuality in the chanson de geste, see Kimberlee A. Campbell,
"Sexual Behavior and Social Consequences in the Old French Chanson de Geste, " in
L 'epopee romane au Moyen Age et aux temps modernes. Aetes du XIVe congres
international de la Societe Rencesvals pour I'etude des epopees romanes, Naples, 24-30
juillet 1997, ed. Salvatore Luongo (Naples: Fridericiana Editrice Universitaria, 2001),
199-211.

81 See Georges, Ecriture

' et imaginaire epiques, 567-568.

82 Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 568. As Georges points out, the "absence de
penis est evoquee sans ambages, elle apparalt comme un manque fundamental," as in Yde
et Olive. When Blanchadin comes back, transformed, he shows to all his newly-acquired
penis in a "shameless flauting of the new-found member" in the words of Francesca

225
Blanchandine is equivocating, a spy sent by her father to look for her recognizes the

princess and informs Clarinde that her husband might really be a woman. Clarinde does

not take the news as sweetly as Olive and, enraged, she decrees that Blanchandine will

have to undress in front her and take a bath to prove that she is in fact a man.

Blanchandine is saved in extremis from revealing her true sex by a stag which charges

into the room. 83 Taking advantage of the confusion, she flees and follows the stag into

the forest. As she is running away and having her clothes and body ripped by thorns and

branches, she addresses many pitiful prayers to God. She thanks Him for saving her and,

mistakenly thinking Tristan dead at this point, she takes an oath that she will never be

with another man and will remain in the forest in a life of prayers and chastity, "Sy que la

turterelle vourray fere ensement: / Quant elle pert son mazle a nul aultre ne prent" (vv.

16,103-4). Weeping and bleeding from her wounds, almost martyr-like, she sees an

angel descending from Heaven who brings her a choice.

"Or te mande Jhesus qui le monde estora,

Lequel tu aymes mieulx, or ne me celles ja:
Ou ades estre femme ainsy qu'i te crea,
Ou devenir ungs home? A ton vouloir sera.
Home sera, se tu veulx, car il te changera
Et te donrra tout ce qu'a home appertendra.
Or en dit ton vouloir, car ainsy il sera.
Se Ion ta voulente. Par moi mande te Fa." (vv. 16,142-9)

Cadane Sautman. See her, "What Can they Possibly Do Together? Queer Epic
Performances in Tristan de Nanteuil," in Same Sex Love and Desire among Women in the
Middle Ages, eds. Francesca Canade Sautman and Pamela Sheingorn. The New Middle
Ages (New York and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001),
218.

83
For the symbolic importance of the stag and its relations to questions of divine election
and initiation, see Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 577-580.

226
Blanchandine, weighing her options, resolves to become a man rather than to remain

alone in the forest as the angel predicts. This decision is an extension of Blanchandine's

anterior resolve never to know another man: by becoming a man, she rejects (female)

sexuality. Thus, while the initial cross-dressing was a trick aiming, partly, to continue her

relationship with Tristan without being discovered by her father, the sex change is a

transformation that permits a certain form of chastity. As Hotchkiss writes, "This

reasoning reflects the author's relative concept of sexual fidelity; to honor the dead

husband, the female body must remain inviolate, whereas the male sexual activity that

84
follows her transformation has no moral valence."

This obvious "evolution" inevitably parallels the idea of a spiritual progression.

The story evokes the stories of the transvestite women saints who take up masculine attire

in order to better dedicate themselves to God by foregoing the body. 85 More forcefully

perhaps, metamorphosis from woman to man as a spiritual elevation was precisely the

allegorical meaning extracted from Ovid's story of Iphis and Ianthe by the Ovide

moralise poet. In the ninth book of his Metamorphoses, Ovid recounts how the young

Iphis has been raised a boy by her mother because her father had declared that an infant

girl would be put to death. 86 As a boy, Iphis is betrothed to Ianthe, and Iphis's mother

84
Hotchkiss, Clothes Make the Man, 117.

XS
Ibid., 13-31, and her hagiographical appendix, 131-141 for a list and discussion of the
transvestite saints. Further discussions can be found in previously mentioned articles as
well as in Eveylyn Patlagean, "L'Histoire de la femme deguisee en moine et revolution
de la saintete feminine a Byzance, " Studi Medievali 17 (1976): 597-623 among others.

86The Ovide moralise is much more misogynistic in tone than its original in explaining
the reasons why the infant girl has to be killed. In the Metamorphoses, the reason is
"simply" that girls cost more and provide less than boys. In the medieval text, Iphis's
father, Ligdus, says that is because "Fame est sans force et sans valour / Par fame est

227
prays to the goddess Isis to save her daughter: "Or te pri sans demorance / D'ore en avant
0 7
t'en entremetes / De la sauver et cure i metes The prayer is successful, and as

Iphis is out walking the next day, her appearance begins to change, "Tout ot son estat et

son estre / Et sa nature femeline / Changiee et prise masculine: / Yphis fille est devenue

filz" (IX: vv. 3,092-95). The poet first offers one of his fanciful "historial sentence"

describing the life of a young woman raised as boy who marries another woman "contre

droit and contre nature" (IX: v. 3,132) and uses a kind of dildo, "Par member apostis"

(IX: v. 3,149), to perform sexually before her "crime" is discovered. 88 However, as

usual, there is a "meillour sentence" that "doit estre miex aimee" (IX: v. 3,160). As a

woman, Iphis represents the sinful soul, her praying mother the interceding Church, and

her metamorphosis the elevation of the sinful soul to God, redemption through

repentance and prayer. The movement from the feminine to the masculine is thus seen as

a movement from sinfulness (in particular, sexual deviancy) to grace (a return to a true,

blessed nature). 89

maint home a dolour." See Ovide moralise: Poeme du commencement du quatorzieme

siecle public d'apres tous les manuscrits connus, eds. C. de Boer, Martine G. de Boer,
and Jeannette Th. M. Vant 'TSant, 5 vols., (Amsterdam : Uitgave van de N.V. Noord-
Hollandsche Uitgeversmaatschappij, 1931), Tome 3, IX: 2,791-92. For a study of the
portrayal of women in the Ovide moralise, see Stefania Cerrito, "Histoires de femmes,
jeux de formes et jeux de sens," in Nouvelles etudes sur VOvide moralise, ed. Marylene
Possamai'-Perez (Paris: Honore Champion, 2009), 73-98.

87 Ovide moralise, Tome 3, IX : 3,066-68.

88Ruth Mazzo Karras points out how the use of "instruments" among women was
considered a more serious offense in the penitential: "If an artificial phallus was used,
there was a penetrator, and she was transgressing gender role by being the active
partner." See her Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing unto Others (Routledge: London,
2005), 110.

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 Keith V. Sinclair rejects any direct Ovidian influence on Tristan de Nanteuil in

his careful study of the poem in favor of Indo-European origins. But both Georges and

Durling have shown that whether or not the Tristan poet knew of the Ovide moralise, it is

likely that he was at least aware of the symbolic import of the sex-change. All the more

so as the other sex-change from the Metamorphoses, that of Caneis-Caneus, was also

allegorized in a similar manner. 90 Georges also goes farther than Sinclair in arguing that

the real and symbolic transformation of Blanchandine constitutes a turning point in the

poem toward a resolutely more religious orientation in a totalizing system, "loin de se

contredire et de former un assemblage heteroclite, ces reminescences convergent et

aboutissent a un discours symbolique universel et coherent." 91 Georges does indeed draw

a strikingly convincing picture of the religious realignment of the poem after this

transformation. 92 This new-found religious orientation finds its conclusion in the

emphasis that will be given toward the end of the epic to Blanchandin's son; St. Gilles,

whose story the trouvere rewrites to tie him to the Nanteuil lineage through this most

unusual parentage of a converted Saracen princess (Clarinde) and a converted Saracen

89This squares firmly with Bullough's understanding of female transvestites in the

Middle Ages who were seen somewhat positively because they aimed to be men. See
"Cross Dressing and Gender Role," 225-226.

90 See Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 575-580. The sex change can be
conceived of as an initiation in our medieval poems. It is the reading that P. M. C. Forbes
offers of it for the Greek myths. See chapter 7 of his Metamorphosis in Greek Myths
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

91 Georges, Ecriture et imaginaire epiques, 609

92 PaulaLeverage has recently made a similarly convincing argument by highlighting the

structural links between the sex change, rebirth, and Eucharistic symbols. See her "Sex
and the Sacraments in Tristan de Nanteuil," in Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Early
Modern Times. New Approaches to a Fundamental Cultural-Historical and Literary-
Anthropological Theme, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 524-27.

229
princess who becomes a man (Blanchandin). 93 It is undeniable that it is St. Gilles who

finally manages to restore some measure of stability and unity to the epic world. In order

to reconcile Charlemagne with the Nanteuil family, the poet uses a well-known episode

of St. Gilles's life: his knowledge of the mysterious sin of Charlemagne, a scenc that was

widely circulated in all of the lives of the saint in the Middle Ages and famously depicted

on the Charlemagne window of Chartres Cathedral. As Georges convincingly argues, the

saint (the result of such an unusual union) does become the focal point of the later part of

the poem that is then transformed and reconfigured by his presence.

The thoroughness of Georges's exploration of the religious, folkloric, and

mythological strata of the poem draws a convincing picture of the role of the sex change.

It can thus be seen as a metonymy for the overall progression of the epic. I do not wish

to refute Georges' exhaustive study. However, I believe that in his magisterial efforts to

map out and organize the overflow of symbols in the poem, he has failed to consider

what remains inherently problematic in Blanchandine's transformation as it relates to the

question of heroism. Even more so, perhaps, because it is the saint and not the knight

who finally brings about a measure of conclusion to this long narrative. Blanchandine is,

after all, another iteration of the epic hero in a poem that offers a plethora of models that

are all more or less incomplete: Tristan, Aye, the bastard Doon, etc. Blanchandine, like

Tristan before the fairy Gloriande, is offered a choice between the passivity of the forest

93As Claude Roussel has shown, late epic poets can be quite playful with hagiography;
creating saints, giving known saints bizarre life stories, engaging in etiological
explanations of their names, etc. Even in this context, however, I would contend that St.
Gilles's extraordinary lineage stands out. See his "Saints et heros dans quelques
chansons de geste du XIVe siecle," Litterales 14 (1994): 125-143. See also his Conter de
geste, 231-276 for the use of saints in La Belle Helene de Constantinople more
particularly.

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and the activity of returning to the world as a fully developed man. Tristan was inspired

to leave Faerie to recover his family and his lover Blanchandine, as well as to take his

revenge on Doon, whom he believed had betrayed him. Blanchandine offers a similar

justification for her desire to be transformed into a man:

"Puis qu'il est ainsy chose que Dieu m'ordonnera

En icelle maniere que le mien corps vourra,
Ungs homs veul devenir. Par moy venge sera
Le damoiseaulx Tristan qu'a honneur m'espousa;
Or est mors en bataille, mon corps le vengera;
Et ens ou non de lui que mon corps tant ama,
Veul devenir ungs homs, par quoy aultres n'ara
Sy vengeray Tristan aux paiens par dela." (vv. 16,165-73)

It is, of course, a shock for her to learn that Tristan is not dead; a surprise well returned

by Tristan when he discovers his wife's transformation. And yet, beneath the romantic

love Blanchandine feels for Tristan, we can detect the chivalric ethos of revenge and

violence. In turn, this is brought about by Tristan's failure to protect his wife from the

desire of Clarinde. Blanchandine as Blanchandin interprets her mission as a return to the

epic world in order to rectify the wrongs that have been wrought upon Tristan who, as the

main character of the poem, should embody the continuity of the epic ideology. Even

once Blanchandin has learned that Tristan is still alive, he understands that there is no

going back to the way things were and fully assumes the new role of king that he has

been granted. Blanchandin goes so far as to refuse to rule a kingdom that he has not

gained through his own merits and leaves with his pregnant wife to conquer Greece. Like

Yde, Blanchandine is increasingly assimilated to the literary model of knightly behavior,

passing from woman to cross-dresser, to man to king-consort, and, finally to conquering

knight (though briefly). Leaving his kingdom to undertake the conquest of Greece, he

will prove as incapable of maintaining order as his epic predecessors did. Defeated in an

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ambush, his left arm severed, he is destined to repeat the cycle of exile and reunion

common to all of the late epic heroes. Though in this case, searching for the saintly son

implies not only repairing the epic whole, but his very body.

Yet in the aftermath of his transformation, Blanchandin, who was only recently

victimized, chooses masculinity to take up the mantle, so to speak. It is also important to

remember that this particular duty had befallen two other "incomplete" characters before

her/him. The cross-dressing Aye d'Avignon had, as we have seen, performed as a knight

in the hope of freeing her family; Tristan, granted courage by external forces, had

intended to do the same, with slightly more success. As Kimberlee Campbell rightly

points out, "Blanchandine's story completes the third panel of this triptych exploring the

epic equivalence of the masculine with the body and actions of the knight." 94 Yet,

whatever can be said about this exploration - and Campbell is correct in pointing out that

it calls into question "institutionalized models of masculinity" - we have to remember

that the reimaging of gender performance in Tristan de Nanteuil is always a reactive

response to a fractured world. 95 The trials and errors of masculinity in the poem, which

in the case of Aye, Tristan and Blanchandine are all to some extent resolved by the

supernatural, are attempts at recovering a unified epic hero who always seems to slip

away.

Indeed, Blanchandin's quest to be reunified with his arm (through reunification

with the son who plays the role of the restorer in the epic) is mirrored by Tristan's

ongoing quest to be reunited with Blanchandin. After many more tribulations, Tristan

94 Campbell, "Acting like a Man," 89.

95 Idem.

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conquers the city of Rochebrune and, being free of his marital bounds with Blanchandine,

marries the princess Florine. Even though the fief in France has yet to be recovered, wc

are finally presented with a picture of relative political and familial stability.

Ensement fut Tristan, c'est verite prouvee,

Sire de deux royames, s'ot Florine espouse.
A Rochebrune fut, la cite gueritee,
Avecques le bastart ou s'amour ot donnee,
Et Raymon le petit qui tant ot renommee;
Et la franche royne fist de Beuvon portee;
A sejour fut le roy o sa dame honoree
Et sy fut le bastart qui bien fiert de l'espee. (vv. 19,209-16)

A powerful king, surrounded by loyal followers, ensuring the continuity of his line by

rearing his son Raimon and engendering another, it seems that Tristan can finally rest

easy. But such a happy conclusion is almost antithetical to the compositional structure of

the late epic, where the end is forever receding and stability perennially slipping from the

heroes' grasp. Departure is necessary for the story to continue and the adventures to

accumulate. Thus, one night, Tristan has a dream in which he sees his former lover

Blanchandin, and

Quant Tristan vit le songe, dont ot devocion

Qu'i en yroit en mer par dedens ung dromon
Et qu'il yroit en Gresse ou ly Grieu sont felon,
Pour savoir con le fait le roy ceur de lyon,
Et Clarinde la dame qui tant ot de renom. (vv. 19,228-32)

The poet will still be very much concerned with the other characters (though he

dispatches most of the Nanteuil family members in a sequence of bloody scenes).

However, the quest of his eponymous hero is from this point onward firmly reoriented

toward finding Blanchandin.

It is permissible to wonder why Tristan would abandon his life and position to go

in search of Blanchandin. The latter's quest is easily explainable by his desire not only to

233
see his son (a usual parental preoccupation) but also to be made physically whole by him.

Tristan's shakily motivated departure from Rochebrune prompted by a dream (one that

does not even portray Blanchandin as being in danger or need of assistance) is slightly

more mysterious. It is tempting to see Tristan's determination to leave his family as a

result of lingering feelings or desire for Blanchandin, despite the transformation. After

all, upon seeing his metamorphosed wife for the first time, Tristan does not recognize that

Blanchandine is no longer a woman and expresses physical desire for his (former) wife,

"Amie, je doy moult desirer / Que je puisse o vo corps au vespre reposer" (vv. 17,573-

74). His ardor is quickly replaced by anger at hearing how Clarinde has stolen his mate,

inviting the suggestion of a sexual competition between them for the favor of

Blanchandine/Blanchandin:

Et quant Tristan Toy, couleur print a muer.

Adonc fu sy dolans qu'i ne sot que pensser,
Et a traite l'espee qui moult reluisoit cler,
Et en vouloir Clarinde parmi le corps fraper;
Et dist: "Pute mauvaise, Dieu vous puist craventer!
La vostre ribaudie ne se povoit celler;
Mais, par celui seigneur qui se lessa pener,
Je vous feray ce fait tres cher guerredonner." (vv. 17,584-91)

It is only through Blanchandin's intercession that Tristan does not slay his "rival." Not

everything, it seems, has been resolved by the sex change. Such a reading is all the more

seductive because Tristan's travails to be reunited with the maimed Blanchandin mirror

the narrative structure of the Maiden Without Hands that conditioned so many late epic

poems, as Claude Roussel has exhaustively demonstrated. 96 The clear structural analogies

between Blanchandin and female characters in other epics would seem to justify a

96Such as La Belle Helene de Constantinople, the Roman du Comte d'Anjou, Florence de

Rome, etc. Claude Roussel, Confer de geste, 73-132.

234
reading that still equates him with the theme of the persecuted wife. Thus, despite his

transformation, Blanchandin could appear to remain the elusive wife who is sought and

found by her husband.

From the perspective that interests us however, that of the supplementation and

restoration of the epic hero, I would like to suggest a different paradigm with which we

can interpret Tristan's departure. I would suggest that along with the notable religious

reorientation of the text, we find in Tristan's quest for Blanchandin similarly "elevated"

motifs: the epic friendship between two men, an addition to the list of epic male

friendships that starts with Roland and Olivier and which is most famously depicted in

Ami et Amile. This is to say that sexual or amorous feelings do not motivate Tristan, but

rather that the eros that has been so present (and destructive) in the poem up to that point

is transformed and reshaped into amicitia. Simon Gaunt has described Ami et Amile as a

"fantastic narrative" that "attempts to reassure its implied audience, since it suggests that

the values it promotes guarantee order and the triumph of rights [,..]." 97 This fantasy

moreover removes "the potential threat of schism within the male community" and "a

model of masculinity is constructed which is entirely unitary, attempting to be entirely

AD
monologic, but which is also entirely implausible." The sex changes in the late epic all

similarly attempt to re-construct this monologism by this most unusual and surprising

means. The ultimately all-too-normative pairing of Tristan and Blanchandin can thus be

seen as a crowning touch to this unwieldy project.

97 Gaunt, Genre and Gender, 51.

98 Ibid., 52.

235
 I do not mean to suggest a perfect analogy between the situation of Tristan and

Blanchandin and that of Ami and Amile. The latter look for each other and then for

salvation, while Blanchandin seeks his son and Tristan seeks Blanchandin. William

Calin has called the quest of Ami and Amile a "quest for the absolute." The friends arc

so devoted to each other that each progressively abandons all material concerns in favor

of the other, and when they finally are reunited, they go on the ultimate pilgrimage: to

Jerusalem. "A pilgrim, by definition, is a man wandering somewhere in search of

something," as Calin says." We find in Tristan's and Blanchandin's wanderings certain

similarities in that they both experience kinds of personal dejection and loss of status.

Tristan, who leaves with a strong escort, eventually tells them to return to Rochcbrune

with news of his travails. He becomes progressively more destitute, all because "tant

quist Blanchandin, qui ne le peust trouver, / Et pour son serement qu'i vouloit aquitter, /

Et pour ce qu'i I'amoit de bon ceur sans fausser" (vv. 20,361-63). Blanchandin wanders

like a pauper, and Tristan lowers himself once again to the rank of knight errant, a

voyaging pilgrim on a mission to recover a friend and to fulfill a vow. While Tristan's

movements had previously been motivated by material concerns (war, women, fief,

family), there is something in that (almost) final journey that tends toward purity, de bon

ceur sans fausser.

The two friends are finally reunited in the city of Namur, where a great

tournament is being held. In order to earn his keep, Tristan had entered a count's service

and fought for him in the melee, unsurprisingly winning the prize. Once more

99William Calin, The Epic Quest: Studies in Four Old French Chansons de Geste
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), 108

236
demonstrating his complete transformation into a man, Blanchandin is drawn to the

tournament not to see a beautiful knight, but to witness knighthood in action:

Et le roy Blanchandin qu'estoit au lez dela,

Quant il oy conter le pris c'on lui donna,
Et qu'i faisait tant d'armes que tout le mont passa,
Quoy qu'i feust affolles, forment le dezira,
Car nature qui trait que moult forment ama,
A veoir beaulx fais d'armes le ceur lui apporta:
Et ce fust ce qui plus illecques l'amena. (vv. 20,620-26)

It is neither God nor predestination that brings Blanchandin to the tournament to witness

Tristan's glory, but nature that entices him to seek what he loves and makes him

overcome fear. Yet, this chance desire clearly partakes of the glorification of the knightly

ethos that Blanchandin comes to embody just as much as Tristan in the poem; guided by

love of arms and not by love, Blanchandin takes one more step toward his restoration that

seems to have to passed through his relationship with Tristan before St. Gilles enacts it in

full.

The reunion of the two characters constitutes one of the most moving scenes of

the poem and highlights the deep bond that now seems to unite them, a bond that has not

been explained before. The previous meeting between the two had been the terrible

scene portraying Tristan's jealousy. Their meeting at Namur thus reconfigures

completely the relationship between the two by completely erasing lingering desire and

presenting them as two men tied together by an almost inexplicably strong friendship.

Et le roy Blanchandin avoit grant desirier

De veoir le vassal que chascun volt priser;
A une grande pierre e'est alle appuier.
De sy loings que il voit Tristan au ceur entire,
Le recongnut ly roy aussi bien c'un denier.
Adonc se commen^a vers lui a aproucher,
Par les jambes le print, le pie lui va baiser.
Et quant Tristan le vit vers lui s'humili'er,

237
 Tantost congnut le roy dont vous m'oes conter;
Dessus le corps au roy sy alia tresbucher.
Eulx deux cheent pasmes, et se vont embrasser.
Ly ung commence 1'autre humblement a baiser,
Chascun de deux souspire et prent a lermoier. (vv. 20,699-711)

The paroxysm of strong emotional markers overpowers the text. At the same time, the

humility of Blanchandin contemplating Tristan and kissing his feet gives clear indication

of the new nature of the relationship. Removed from sexuality, the intertwining of the

two heroes in a powerful embrace creates a new couple that from now on will be nearly

inseparable. Tristan's protector, the count of Namur, seeing his man in embrace with a

pauper, urges him to send him away, but Tristan insists that "Se n'est mye ung truant, se

saches sans cuider, / Aingois est gentis homs, sy le doy avoir cher; / James ne veult sans

lui aller ne chevaucher" (vv. 20,734-36). Although Tristan cannot completely heal

Blanchandin, he ensures his reestablishment in the social order, "Car c'est mes bons amis

que je doy avoir cher" (v. 20,747). Blanchandine's transformations do keep on

happening, from Saracen princess to cross-dresser, from knight to king, from king to

pauper, and from lover to friend. Like Ami and Amile, whose lives were a series of

parallels and mirrorings, of complementation and quest for each other, Tristan and

Blanchandin finally achieve a temporarily satisfying balance together.

The idea that they are bound by a friendship similar to the great epic affections is

one of the only ways to explain why Tristan and Blanchandin do not immediately return

to France in order to search for St. Gilles. Rather than undertaking a more proactive set

of inquiries, they simply start wandering together, ".xxx. an sot qui son filz, c'est bien

chose prouvee, / Et en terre et en mer et dedens Galilee" (vv. 22,630-31). Though it

would be a mistake to quibble with the unexpected and unnecessary geographical

238
meandering of the late epic heroes, it is significant that their path takes them from Namur

to Galilee and finally "dedens Jherusalem, celle cite loee" (v. 22,636). We will recall

that in Ami et Amile, the two friends, after having restored order to Ami's fief by

subjugating his evil wife Lubias, had departed on a pilgrimage, "La mer passerent au vent

sans aviron, / Jusqu'au Sepulcre n'i font arrestion." 100 Calin has noted how this ultimate

journey is narratively superfluous and how it "plays a symbolic role, contributes to the

maintaining of a certain tone, establishes an ideal of life." 101 Thus, in Ami et Amile, the

renunciation of all earthly ties by the heroes and the trip to Jerusalem prefigure their

inexplicable death by a mysterious disease that fells them both upon their return. Having

been purified by each other and by God, their common tomb is known to pilgrims "qui

vont parmi l'estree" (v. 3,496).

Tristan and Blanchandin are not granted such an apotheosis, even though they

refashion themselves into anonymous milites Christi. They remain ten years in

Jerusalem. There, Blanchandin is outfitted with "Ung bras et une main de fer bien

asoudee" (v. 22,640) which he uses to engage, alongside Tristan, in years of combat

against the Infidels. It is only after fifteen long years of exile that they will both decide,

as if satisfied with their penance, to return to Rochebrune and then the city of Aufallerne

in pursuit of the elusive physical restoration that Blanchandin has been promised. The

epic convention of heroic friendship is like the shifting figure of the hero himself: mired

in a series of paradoxes that draw out its insufficiencies.

100Ami et Amile : chanson de geste, ed. Peter F. Dembowski (Paris: Honore Champion,
1969), vv. 3,482-83.

101 Calin, The Epic Quest, 107.

239
 All this is not to suggest that the religious connotations of the sex change and the

reorientation of the poem toward St. Gilles are not of primary importance.

Blanchandine's transformation does indeed initiate a new-found vigor in the spiritual

discourse of the poem. However, the fact that Blanchandin by himself - as a knight

created by God and divinely endowed with the appendage of masculinity - remains a

fractured and incomplete individual still in need of help stands precisely at the crux of the

poem's view of the unity of the knightly concept. Paula Leverage has recently made the

point that Tristan de Nanteuil, in light of its obvious religiosity, might well have been

connected to lay and religious organizations, like many of the chansons de geste H>2 This,

according to Leverage, might very well explain the theological sophistication deployed in

the depiction of the sex change.

From the perspective of the portrayal of heroism in the poem, moreover, it might

also be useful in illuminating the fragmentation of the category itself, forever

supplemented and never quite up to the task. Could it be that the variations on the theme

of the male epic hero in Tristan de Nanteuil ultimately lead to a devaluation of the

traditional hero in favor of something else altogether? The hero of the final part of the

poem is St. Gilles, a character who does not conform, in many ways, to the typical picture

of the epic hero, as it is made explicit in the text. Upon Blanchandin's and Tristan's

return, they send a messenger to Raimon. The messenger, however, is told that Raimon

has been captured but that he "ot ung frere en la tente litee / Ou bien pourra parler et dire

sa pensee" (vv. 22,693-94). The messenger rushes to the tent, thinking that he will

102 Leverage, "Sex and the Sacraments," 529-533.

240
encounter Tristan's other biological son, Beuve. But when he comes to "saint Gille qui le

corps ot plaisant," he realizes his mistake and exclaims in disbelief:

"Seigneurs, dist le message, vous m'ales degabant,

Car onques Raymon n'ot a frere tel truant;
Aussy bien est tailles d'entrer dedens ung champ
Que pour prendre les singes en ung bois verdoyant.
Damedieu vous confonde, quant vous m'ales moquant!
Cuides que ne congnoisse Beufvon le bel enffant?
N'a sy bel damoisel en ce ciecle vivant;
E cil a le corps maigre et ung povre semblant,
Oncques n'atint Raymon ne ne fut filz Tristant." (vv. 22,704-12)

The characters soon sort out the initial confusion, and Tristan and Blanchandin arc of

course overjoyed to finally meet St. Gilles. Yet what we now have is a radically different

(physical) description of the hero, one that stands apart from all the rest. The male, the

cross-dressed, and the transgendered heroes alike fit within a specific model, all

variations on the theme of standardized heroism. These permutations are all ultimately

subsumed by the (outwardly) weak figure of the saint, who gloriously and paradoxically

comes to represent the paragon of excellence. What the merveilleux, transvestitism, and

even a divine sex-change had been unable to accomplish is ultimately performed by the

unlikeliest of heroes, for the glory of God and the Nanteuil family.

Though we are left with a picture of familial and narrative continuity and

resolution in Tristan de Nanteuil, we are led to ponder what the variations on and trials of

heroism through the figures of the cross-dressed and transgendered heroines mean for the

constellation of the epic world. In his Genealogies and Etymologies, R. Howard Bloch

argues the following about the early epic:

In the cpic an assumed (though violable) linguistic propriety combines with a

realized narrative coherence to produce the somewhat unidimensional universe
which proliferates, according to a genealogical model, in the direction of ancestry.
There can be no distinction between the narrative and referential continuity of the

241
 epic, the biological continuity of lineage, or the economic continuity of noble
family property. 103

It would be difficult to make the case the late epic still conforms to this paradigm.

Linguistic propriety is, almost ipso facto, violated by the breaking down of the

concordance between the outside appearance and inner being of the cross-dressed

characters, despite the movement to restore this unity. The pure referentiality of the word

no longer exists; deletions and additions of vowels and consonants have turned the epic

on its head. The unidimensionality of the epic universe is moreover shaken by the

suggestions, created by the linguistic upheaval, that different paths, concurrent worlds are

available: Jourdain or Jourdaine, Aye or Gaudion, Alais or Balliant, Yde or Ydes,

Blandandine or Blanchandin, "damesses" or "deuesses." The art of late epic becomes an

art of (biological) misnaming.

And yet something remains of that perfect concordance, if only as shadows.

Bloch again reminds us that "[f]amily relations are coterminous with literary relations,"

and I would add, affiliations. 104 Jourdaine cross-dresses out of ancestry; Aye serves the

lineage, whatever her gender; Alais preserves and protects familial integrity by partaking

in the perpetual struggle against the Saracens; Yde makes claim to the biological

parentage of Huon de Bordeaux and pretendi to familial relations with the whole

Carolingian court. More subtly, the refashioning of the relationship between Tristan and

Blanchandin to conform to the literary typology of the epic friendship, via an Ami et

Amiie analogy, incorporates the latter fully into the orbit of the Nanteuil lineage. By

103R. Howard Bloch, Etymologies and Genealogies : Toward a Literary Anthropology of

the French Middle Ages (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983), 108.

104 Bloch, Etymologies and Genealogies, 94.

242
restoring the broken link (brought about by the "divorce" enacted by the sex change)

between the two, the familial and literary relation of the two is reestablished on surer

footing. This, in turn, confirms and reinforces the brotherly bonds between Gilles and his

half-brother Raimon, and places the saint in the symbolic position of Tristan's stepson.

Implied in all this is the notion that the narrative coherence can be restored without harm

by the (once) heterogeneous Gilles - himself the result of a bifurcation of both linguistic

and biological proprieties, and an unlikely epic hero. Despite the vagaries of genetic

identities and linguistic playfulness, the late epic trouveres thus always travail to

maintain the continuity of the lineage, of the economic patrimony, and of the narrative

through a network of relationships underpinned by their ever-present concern, shared by

cross-dressing and transgendered characters alike; generic solidarity.

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Conclusion

"II suffit de comprendre que la condamnation du 'mechant roman' est une

provocation, pour l'accepter comme un defi," writes Robert Francis Cook in what he

does not call a "plaidoyer pour la chanson de geste tardive," and yet almost reads like

one. 1 The challenge of the past three chapters has been to position firmly the late

chansons de geste as such. At the same time, my aim has been to highlight differences

from the earlier models without presenting them as radical breaks within the tradition but

as attempts (some successful, some not) at renewal and survival. Dominique Boutet

writes that "contrairement a une vision preconfue et parfois tenace, la chanson de geste

n'est pas un genre fige, rigide, guinde dans une esthetique archaisante de plus en plus

moribonde." 2 My discussion of heroism has shown that fixity and rigidity are indeed not

completely germane to the late epic which is characterized by fluidity and openness, by

diversity and exploration, within a framework of the old, the reused, and the reworked.

Far from being "guinde[s] dans une esthetique archaisante," I have suggested that the late

epic trouveres sought to make it their own by a series of trials and errors at literary

innovation, yet all the while attempting to remain within the confines of generic

continuity. Perceptively, Boutet also says that the "tendance holistique a toute epopee est

le secret de sa longevite, puisqu'elle lui permet d'epouser, sans renier ses traditions

techniques, la diversite croissante du reel." The tensions in the depiction of heroism in

1Robert Francis Cook, "Mechants romans et epopee frangaise: pour une philologie
profonde," Esprit createur 23 (1983): 73, 69

2Dominique Boutet, La chanson de geste. Forme et signification d'une ecriture epique

au Moyen Age (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1993), 271.
the late chanson de geste is thus always between its ecriture, its models, and the world

into which it is being sent. But if the last epics are not moribund, their ongoing vigor

does not prevent or inoculate them against pessimistic tendencies in the portrayal of the

possibility or impossibility of heroism. For as much as we wish to embrace the "tendance

holistique a toute epopee," we have to remain aware of the existence of points of friction

and rupture, and of, yes, uncertainties. In other words, the "tendance holistique,"

documented herein, is the conduit through which and the backdrop against which the

lacks and lapses of the late epic (embodied in the figure of the hero) are both repaired and

exposed. Heroic uncertainties neither cause, nor hinder, nor enable the survival of the

genre, but are byproducts of its continuity.

In chapter one, I showed how the growing input from folklore allowed for a

rhetorical exploration of who the hero can be. The lost and stolen aristocratic children of

the late epic must inevitably confront and engage with the circumstances of their

upbringing, which in turn enables a discourse of self-definition. I have both shown the

ideological impact of this articulation of heroic belonging (seen through the lens of a

diluted economic discourse) and the implicit fantasy it underscores. However, my

presentation of the Chanson de Hugues Capet has also made clear that the idea of

chivalric exclusion based on origins was seen as detrimental not only to the hero, but to

the whole community. In the last part of the chapter, the figure of the bastard came to

embody all these "positive" trends of the late epic. An ambiguous figure in a so-called

"bastardized" genre, the bastard becomes the symbol of the confluence of mixed origins

with aspirations to join the patrilineal line. Extrapolating slightly, I then showed that the

bastard could be read in fact as a metonymy for the late epic as a whole; deemed impure,

245
but displaying a vibrant concern for generic integrity within the world of the chanson de

geste.

In the second chapter, my discussion took a slightly different direction that led us

to consider the more somber tones of the late epic. By tackling the problem of generic

cross-pollination (or generic interference) between the romance and the chanson de geste

through the use of the merveilleux, I created a typology that revealed that the merveilleux

is almost, though uneasily, fully reintegrated within an epic framework. I went further

and argued that the merveilleux is, in some cases, precisely what allowed the epic mission

(the reunification of the family, the recovery of the fief, the rectifying of the epic

universe, etc.) to continue. The merveilleux, however, as a social and literary remedy,

was shown to highlight an alarming undercurrent of pessimism in the representation of

the late epic hero. Its very presence reveals its necessity, and makes us wonder (if not

marvel) at what would have happened had it been absent. As a heterogeneous means

used to lead the hero back to the road of generic orthodoxy, the merveilleux thus acts as

both a symptom and a diagnosis that something has gone amiss in the epic universe;

something that needs to be fixed.

In the third chapter, I followed the path of inquiry begun in the second by

exploring other rather surprising additions to the epic world: the cross-dressed and

transgendered female heroes. I demonstrated that the female heroes of the late epic were

another index through which the questioning of the heroic ideal was exposed. The male

heroes' insufficiencies are revealed through the need for the female characters to

supplement their shortcomings (by temporarily or permanently supplanting them), and

masculine heroism itself questioned by the ease of linguistic and gender slippages from

246
female to male. Yet, as in the case of the merveilleux, I also argued that these additions

are not only meant as a critique of the notion of heroism, but also as restorative elements.

Simultaneously destabilizing and reinforcing the chivalric ethos of the chansons de geste,

the female characters can be as deeply involved in epic resolution and preservation as

their male counterparts. Similarly, I also argued that the linguistic playfulness of the

poem, the apparent breaking down of the propriety of language, was ultimately subsumed

by the literary coherence of the epic, and used to promote narrative and ideological

conformity.

As I admitted from the very beginning, I do not pretend to have offered a cohesive

and monolithic picture of fourteenth-century epic heroism. As it has, I hope, bccome

clear during my analysis of the hero, such a result would have been forcing the late epic

into a mold antithetical to its diversity and technique. I have not refuted the outrage of

nineteenth-century medievalists, but debunked their prejudices, per Cook's instruction:

"L'on ne repond pas aux accusations anachroniques en affirmant qu'entre 1150 et 1500 il

n'y a guere que Turold qui n'ait pas perdu son temps." 3 What this study has achieved is

the establishment of a typology of archaizing tendencies, literary innovations and

transformations, and generic longings and desires, seen through the prism of heroism.

The expansion of the realm of representation of the late chansons de geste can thus

always be seen as both a literary action and reaction on the part of the trouveres who

populate ever-growing narratives with heterogeneous elements intended to help them

retain their cohesion. Therefore, an honest and rigorous assessment of the epic

production of the later Middle Ages calls for a recognition of what has changed and what

3 Cook, "Mechant roman," 73.

247
has remained the same. It also requires us to shed our nostalgia for the immutable

generic model, to embrace a "diversite des vues." 4 Only then, as this study has partially

demonstrated, can we discover and understand the whys of the survival of the epic.

In response to the critical obituary of the epic written by the nineteenth-century

medievalists, we could thus paraphrase Galileo and mutter under our breath "Eppur si

vive." It survives, and certainly sometimes even thrives, in the fourteenth century and its

characters and themes keep on having a profound impact on French (not to mention

Italian) literature throughout the early-modern and modern era, under the guise of further

poems, proses, novels, plays, etc. I would put forward that this continuity is partly due to

the innovations of the late trouveres who opened up more and more the world of the epic,

even though it might have come at a price with respect to the ideological and generic

purity of the epopee nationale. Even then, however, the impact of the epic (late epic

included) on the national and cultural consciousness of Europe is not as uniform as the

severe judgments of Gautier and Paris would let us believe. If the two great medievalists

saw in the Chanson de Roland the incarnation of everything that was worthy and good in

the caractere national and sa litterature, and therefore any deviation as an inevitable

moral and aesthetic corruption, some sought and saw inspirations and origins elsewhere.

To close with an example of these literary inheritances, we might turn to

Alexandre Arnoux's 1922 play, Huon de Bordeaux: Melodrame feerique. It begins with

a lengthy prologue by the luiton Malabron, presented as the embodiment of the creative

spirit of France.

Et vous aussi, freres putnes...

Je ne sais si vous comprendrez,

4 Ibid., 69.

248
 Car depuis plus d'un millenaire
Je me suis cache dans cette terre
Et je nourris votre froment.
Depuis, intarissablement,
Mes filles ont porte leur charge;
Sous l'embleme, coq, aigle ou lis,
Ma posterite fut si large
Que parmi vous je vois mes fils. 5

Malabron's address to the public is an evocation of a millennium of cultural production,

predicated on, inspired by, and linked to the vieilles chansons, 6 Huon de Bordeaux

himself is a true son of France, resurrected by Malabron, for the pleasure and edification

of the public.

Or ecoutez : Chansons du pays doux,

II a dormi, l'enfant sur vos genoux;
II a suce, riant, de ses goulees.
Or ecoutez: Freres, sang de mon sang,
II vient a nous, joie et fer bruissant,
Du creux du temps et du fond du silence,
Le fier enfant, la fleur de fine France. 7

No longer is Roland, with his fixity and gallant "jusqu'au-boutisme" the only model from

and for the Middle Ages. Huon, the ambivalent, the uncertain, the supplemented hero

tied to the bizarre and the heteroclite, can also be a noble ancestor to centuries of literary

creation, and Malabron, not Turoldus, the spring of literary life and rejuvenation. Mutatis

mutandis, the epic lives.

5Alexandre Arnoux, Huon de Bordeaux: Melodrame feerique (Paris: Albin Michel,

Editeur, 1922), 9.

6Arnoux's dedication reads as follow: "A mon pere qui m'apprit a lire nos vieilles
chansons."

1 Ibid., 11.

249
Appendix One

List of Late Epic Poems

Reproduced from William W. Kibler, "Relectures de l'epopee," in Au carrefour des

routes d'Europe: la chanson de geste, 2 vols., (Aix-en-Provence: Publications du
CUERMA, 1987), 1: 130.

Ami et Amile, remaniement en alexandrins du XVe s.

Le Batard de Bouillon

Baudouin de Sebourc

Belle Helene de Constantinople

Charlemagne (de Girart d'Amiens)

Le Chevalier au Cygne et Godefroi de Bouillon

Ciperis de Vignevaux

Les Enfances de Garin de Monglane

Florence de Rome

Florent et Octavien

Garin le Lorrain (fragments d'une redaction en alexandrins)

La Geste de Monglane
Girart de Vienne
Hernaut de Beaulande
Renier de Gennes
Galiens li restores

Girart de Roussillon (remaniement en alexandrins, XlVe s.)

Hugues Capet

Huon de Bordeaux (remaniement en alexandrins, XVe s.)

Auberon
Esclarmonde, Clarisse et Florent, Yde et Olive
Godin
Huon, roi de feerie, Combat contre les Geants
Huon le Desvey

250
Jourdain de Blayes (remaniement en alexandrins, XVe s.)

Lion de Bourges

Ogier le Danois (remaniement en decasyllables, XlVe s., en alexandrins, XVe s.)

Renaut de Montauban (remaniement en alexandrins, XVe s.)

Theseus de Cologne

Tristan de Nanteuil.

Two long fifteenth-century poems often included in the list, but excluded by Kibler:

La Geste des dues de Bourgogne

La Geste de Liege

251
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