The gab as a latent genre in medieval French literature: drinking and boasting in the Middle Ages 9780915651115

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Editor's Preface (page vii)
Abbreviations (page ix)
Introduction (page 1)
1 The Word (page 7)
2 The Custom (page 31)
3 The Genre (page 65)
4 The Voyage de Charlemagne as Gab (page 99)
5 Latencies (page 141)
6 Crystallizations (page 185)
Conclusion: The Gab's Last Gasp (page 229)
Sources and Studies (page 237)
Index (page 253)

Citation preview

THE GAB AS A LATENT GENRE IN MEDIEVAL FRENCH LITERATURE

Medieval Academy Books, No. 103

THE GAB AS A LATENT GENRE IN MEDIEVAL FRENCH LITERATURE Drinking and Boasting in the Middle Ages

John L. Grigsby

The Medieval Academy of America Cambridge, Massachusetts

Copyright © 2000 By The Medieval Academy of America Library of Congress Control Number: 00-134267 ISBN 0-915651-11-4 Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Editor’s Preface Vil

Abbreviations 1x

Introduction I |2 The Word 7 The Custom 31 3 The Genre 65

5 Latencies I4l 6 Crystallizations 185

4 The Voyage de Charlemagne as Gab 99

Conclusion: The Gab’s Last Gasp 229

Index 253

Sources and Studies 237

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Editor's Preface

AFTER A HIGHLY DISTINGUISHED career teaching medieval French language

and literature at the University of California, Berkeley, and Washington University in St. Louis, during which he produced over sixty publications reflecting a wide spectrum of scholarly interests,! Jack Grigsby died on February 14, 1988. He had received word from the Medieval Academy that this book had been accepted for publication, and I agreed readily to his request that I guide it through to print after he was gone. The edition of the Voeux du héron, on which he had made considerable progress, was completed by Norris J. Lacy.’ Some changes have been introduced in the editorial process. Jack was a meticulous textual critic, having produced outstanding editions of Joufroi de Poitiers and the Liber Fortunae, the latter stemming from his doctoral dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania under the legendary editor William Roach. Based on my knowledge of his high standards, my experience editing a contribution of his to Romance Philology when I was editorin-chief of that journal, and my work collaborating with him in the early stages of an edition of the Chateauroux version of the Chanson de Roland, I believe he would have accepted these changes. At Richard Emmerson’s request, and with the assistance of Karen Akiyama, I have added to the bibliography of scholarly studies selected relevant works that have appeared since 1988. These entries are identified as “[ed.].”

1 See “Publications of John L. Grigsby” and James F. Jones, Jr., “The Works of John Lambert Grigsby: A Bibliographic Essay,” in Continuations: Essays on Medieval French

Literature and Language in Honor of fohn L. Grigsby, ed. Norris J. Lacy and Gloria Torrini-Roblin (Birmingham, Ala., 1989). ? The Vows of the Heron (Les Voeux du héron): A Middle French Vowing Poem, ed. John

L. Grigsby and Norris J. Lacy, and trans. Norris J. Lacy, Garland Library of Medieval Literature 86 (New York, 1992). VII

vill EDITOR’S PREFACE Jack Grigsby was a kind and loyal friend who gave me much valuable guidance in the early years of my teaching career. His generosity in reviewing the works of colleagues before they reached the immutable printed page was legendary. It is a great satisfaction to me to have been able to render this service to his memory. Joseph J. Duggan University of California, Berkeley

Abbreviations

BnF Bibliothéque nationale de France CCM Cahiers de civilisation médiévale

CFMA Classiques francais du moyen age DEAF Dictionnaire étymologique de l’'ancien francais, ed. Baldinger

FEW Franzosisches etymologisches Worterbuch, ed. von Wartburg

IF Islenzk Fornrit FS Jomsvikinga saga K Koschwitz, ed., Sechs Bearbeitungen KELNM Kulturbistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder

P.-C. Pillet and Carstens, Bibliographie der Troubadours

RPh Romance Philology SATE Société des anciens textes francais TL Tobler and Lommatzsch, Altfranzosisches Worterbuch VN Aebischer, Versions norroises Voyage Voyage de Charlemagne

ZrPh Zeitschrift fiir romanische Philologie

IX |

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Introduction

DRINKING AND BOASTING are found among all peoples in all periods, as his-

torians and social anthropologists tell us. Although the advent of boasting probably preceded the practice of drinking alcoholic beverages in the earliest human societies, it cannot have been long after the euphoric effects of drinking were observed that the two tended to be practiced in proximity.

Customs and rituals soon arose in connection with the consumption of society's earliest legal drug. The historical record shows that Germanic warriors were prone to rely on drink not only to relax during long evenings but also to “summon up the sinews” before battle. Thus situations devel-

oped in which a drink might seal a vow or engender a tall tale. When people start telling stories, literature is nascent. In the French Middle Ages, the period that most concerns us here, the word gab appeared with a rather special usage in the famous poem Le Voyage de Charlemagne, which epitomized this aspect of medieval civilization. The word, deceptively similar to its English congener, was born with the rise of French chivalry and died

with its decline. It is thus a mark of the period, as characteristic of the Middle Ages as hauberks, lances, wimples, or war-cries.

Over a century ago, Adolf Tobler highlighted the custom of drinking and boasting as a recurrent theme in medieval Romance texts, and especially in medieval French. He traced the theme in a concise philological manner in conjunction with the exegesis of a phrase in Chrétien de Troyes’s

Chevalier au lion: “Plus a paroles an plain pot / De vin qu’an un mui de

, cervoise.” [“There are more words in a full glass of wine than in a barrel of beer.”]! A few years later, Pio Rajna saw in Beowulf’s vow to kill the monster Grendel without a sword a similarity to the vows of Charlemagne

and the Peers, while about the same time Kristoffer Nyrop perspi| Tobler, “Exegetisches,” 80-85.

I

2 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE caciously linked the gabs to the heitstrengingar in the Scandinavian fomsvikingasaga, and to boasts in Les Voeux du paon, Les Voeux du héron, and other

texts. Such amusements were probably Frankish in origin, he surmised. It was often the fate of such pioneers of medieval literary studies to have their judgments refuted as naive or laughable in the century that followed, especially by followers of the ultra-positivist Joseph Bédier.

A superficial, rapid, and little known precursor to the present investigation was undertaken by John R. Reinhard under the title “Some Illustrations of the Medieval gab.” Reinhard recognized the usefulness of studying the theme in texts that might lack the word gab, but of course he could not benefit from certain invaluable tools now at our disposal, such as Von Wartburg’s Franzosisches Etymologisches Worterbuch (= FEW), the ‘ToblerLommatzsch Altfranzosisches Worterbuch (=TL), Baldinger’s Dictionnaire Etymologique de ’Ancien Francais (= DEAF), or the Kulturbistorisk Leksikon for Nordisk Middelalder fra Vikingtid til Reformationstid (= KLNM). Much

of his article is devoted to plot summary. If the summaries and extensive citations of Echtra Rig Tuaithe Luchra ocus Aided Fergusa maic Leide, Leabbar Gabala, the Prose Lancelot, and Les Voeux du paon introduced these texts to

an English-speaking readership, Reinhard’s failure to add critical analyses to his juxtapositions leaves the underlying implications of the gab as a medieval literary structure unexplored. He skips from the early Voyage de Charlemagne to the late Ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall. Once having associated Arthur with the gabs, he plunges into Celtic narrative, but he admits the possibility that the Irish “may have adapted a Scandinavian custom to their own uses” (43). He was apparently unaware of studies by Laura Hibbard Loomis and Tom Peete Cross concerning Irish texts, even though they had appeared four years previously in Modern Philology. Yet the texts he gathered from such varied sources demonstrate both the richness and the pitfalls underlying an attempt to confine drunken boasting, as a social pattern in literature, to limited temporal and geographical parameters. The first truly systematic treatment of the gab as a theme was undertaken by Jorg-Ulrich Fechner, who in 1964 focused his spotlight on Old Occitan

lyric poetry. Fechner summarized scholarship from the mid-nineteenth century onward concerning the origins of the word and the custom in various lands, especially the Nordic and the Germanic. He noted its connection to German gaffeln, Dutch gabberen, and English gabble, but by the

choice of his corpus Fechner was doomed a priori to conclude that the Occitan gap (I distinguish it by this orthography from the French gab) was

a theme rather than a Germanic custom or a genre adopted by the 2 Rajna, Le Origini dell’Epopea francese, 405ff.,; Nyrop, Storia dell’Epopea francese,

IIg-20.

INTRODUCTION 3 troubadours.’ In his footsteps, Hans-Robert Jauss declared as early as 1970

that the gap never succeeded in becoming an autonomous literary genre because its generic structure remained concomitant and its function dependent rather than dominant.* Yet both Fechner (20) and, before him, Wilhelm Keller recognized that the lyric gap differed from the epic gab. One must conclude in agreement with Jauss that the term gap, when applied to medieval lyric poetry, merely serves to designate a theme, not a genre like the canso, the sirventes, or the joc partit.

Jauss’s influential rejection of the gap as a genre temporarily laid the question to rest, at least as it concerned the Occitan lyric. Reopening the issue for the non-lyric works entails determining the characteristics of the gab and specifying which works fall into the category. That the gab contains all the ingredients of a literary type must be admitted: a narrator, a story, an emotional (poetic) outburst, a setting, an audience. It is, in even its most fragmentary form, a kind of discourse that German scholars designate Prahlreden or Reizreden: boasting or stimulative speech. Like all language, it has the potential of bringing about action. “Tout discours a une dimension magique,” Todorov has declared.° And discourse can become genre. The gab is discourse capable of engendering imitations of itself on a broader and more complex level than that of a mere drunken boast. The gab is incipient genre.

From the instant we confer a name on something, the nominalists tell us, we bring it into existence or change its existence. By classifying a text we prepare its readers for a certain expectation, as reception theory has demonstrated convincingly. Thus if one declares that the Voyage de Charlemagne a férusalem et a Constantinople is a chanson de geste, one expects a long, serious poem relating the glorious deeds of great, almost mythic or supernatural, heroes, who direct the fate of thousands of warriors and affect the history of nations. If we call the same poem a pilgrimage, we anticipate the pious recounting of a religious person’s travels to holy places, with edificatory aims, as in the Peregrinatio ad loca sancta or Guillaume de Digulleville’s Pelerinage de la vie humaine. For those who know the Voyage de Charlemagne, the gab evokes immediately the image of an outlandish boast, flowing wine, and embarrassing consequences. By applying the tag gab to certain poems, we invite the poem’s public to look for these aspects, to wonder about individual storytelling, vanity, drinking, and responsibility for one’s words. If we apply the construct to works conventionally cate> Fechner, “Zum Gap in der altprovenzalischen Lyrik,” 15-34. + Jauss, “Littérature médiévale et théorie des genres,” 83. > Keller, “Das Sirventes ‘Fadet joglar’ des Guiraut von Calanso.” 6’Tzvetan ‘Todorov, Les Genres du discours, 274; see also 53.

4 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE gorized as epic, romance, or lyric, we challenge the modern reader of medieval literature to examine the prejudices that have guided earlier interpretations, and may, if the enterprise is successful, provoke this reader into discovering new riches among the worn conventions surrounding the old

poems. Hans-Georg Gadamer has reminded us that we must challenge words and concepts whose definitions are accepted without thinking, for they are themselves keys to understanding history.’ Montaigne’s essays are a monument to the notion that a single work can

create a genre. Croce, on the other hand, claimed that genres in the accepted sense do not exist: each poem is genre unto itself.® Jolles explored the notion that “simple forms,” legends, myths, riddles, locutions, etc., are the elements of larger categories: Nomen est omen! Genette and Jauss stress

that genres are not conceived in advance but only recognized after the fact.'° Todorov has striven to uncover rules of genre embedded in the works

themselves and, in the manner of Jolles, has formulated frameworks for the invitation, the riddle, and the charm in non-European culture. Indeed, it must be remembered that the word ‘genre’, with its present meaning in English, did not arise until the nineteenth century.!! The term “latent (sub—)genre” as I develop it here resembles very closely the conventional meaning of “motif,” i.e. a recurrent situation exemplified

by, say, the Don Juan or the princess-sold-as-slave themes, but I propose to treat the gab as a potential genre in an effort to ferret out conventions that might govern works placed in the category, in order to alter horizons of expectation and provoke constructive reaction. While a motif might recur in the same work (in this function it usually is called a leitmotif), and may appear in fragmented form, as does the gab in Old Occitan lyric poetry, a genre assumes a larger and more coherent set of characteristics. ‘Io qualify as a gab, a poem must display a gab-like structure at its heart: boasts must act as a springboard, causing the action to go forward, or they must provoke a crisis, like the climax in a drama. ‘Io qualify as a gab, a work must betray

an adherence to conventions observed in other works of the same type: drinking, perhaps a banquet setting, the presence of adversaries, a journey to a foreign land, and the risks of bragging in unsure territory. If a poem ’ Gadamer, Truth and Method, 11. ® See Todorov, Genres, 46. ° André Jolles, Formes simples, 22. 10 “Toutes les espéces, tous les sous-genres, genres ou super-genres sont des classes empiriques, établies par observation du donné historique, ou a la limite par extrapolation a partir

de ce donné, c’est-a-dire par un mouvement déductif superposé 4 un premier mouvement toujours inductif et analytique” (my emphases). Gérard Genette, Introduction a Parchitexte, 70-71. '! René Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature, 299 n. 18.

INTRODUCTION 5 reveals these conventions fragmentarily, or conforms up to a certain point in the narrative line only to cast them off by following other generic conventions, I have not included it in the literary class. The boasts themselves, if they promise an act rather than proclaim past accomplishment, engage the future, so that the stature of the boaster is not reconfirmed but rather thrown into question. These and other conventional aspects can be gleaned from the central work among gabs, a masterpiece of medieval French literature, the Voyage de Charlemagne, whose echoes in succeeding texts may be far more resonant than critics have suspected. But literary historians have, on the other hand, perhaps too often compared the Voyage to works containing boasting scenes whose resemblance to the gabs is less marked than they would have us believe. Surely texts other than those I have been able to scrutinize may qualify as gabs, for, by its universal nature and its attachment to the chanson de geste, the concept invites accumulation. I hope to propose a hypothesis

scholars. |

that can be tested and perhaps expanded by succeeding generations of

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| The Word

‘THE VIKINGS’ FEROCIOUS ASSAULTS were commemorated by Carolingian po-

ets who commonly portrayed the invaders as cruel heathens, lusting for gold, often spurred on by their women, and of such shaggy appearance that they were likened to goats.' As early as 783, Paul the Deacon attributes beastly characteristics to the Danish king Sigifrid, whom he is called upon to convert. Among the Dane’s principal shortcomings, Paul asserts, is his

ignorance of Latin. But if the Deacon confesses his own inability to understand his enemy’s pagan tongue, it is certain that the Norsemen imported, along with their violence, words that the Christians finally adopted. Although most of this vocabulary reflected maritime pursuits, a handful of

terms hint at the Vikings’ tempestuous character, e.g., OF escharnir ‘to insult, outrage’, honnir ‘to shame’, and gaber ‘to mock’. Already in Paul’s early poem berating King Sigifrid, mockery stands out as a feature of Scandinavian culture and temperament: “Thus I will seem like an animal and a beast of the field, / And will be mocked by the ignorant crowd of retainers (Andersson, 218).” No one doubts today that the noun gab (verbal form gaber; reached Old French through Scandinavian either from Old Norse gabb ‘mockery’ and gabba ‘to make fun of’, or from Old

Swedish, which retained for the noun the meanings ‘mockery, target of derision or deceit’ and for the verb ‘to denigrate, deceive’. Though the Theodore M. Andersson, “The Viking Image in Carolingian Poetry,” 218, 231, 239. Andersson’s translation of Paul the Deacon’s poem on 218~19 is used in the following discussion. 2 See Erik von Kraemer, who cites Mobius, Altnord. Glossar, and Séderwall, Ordbok over svenska medeltidsspr., Suppl., 1953, in “Sémantique de |’ancien francais gab,” 73. 7

8 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE word would later acquire new meanings and could be traced to the far corners of Romance-speaking lands, including England, the loci of its earliest attestations (with two exceptions, one of which is suspect) are near the Vikings’ point of entry into Neustria.’ Twelfth-century texts in the Norman and Anglo-Norman dialects of Old French have the highest proportion of occurrences. The Voyage de Charlemagne, in which the word plays a key thematic role, has survived in a single manuscript of unmistakable AngloNorman coloring.* The word’s potency can be measured by its attraction of suffixes (and an occasional prefix): gabe, gabel, gabeles, (gabelés?), gabelet, gabelete, guaberete, gabet, gabete, gaballe, gabement, gabace, gabeis, gaberie, gaberise, and finally one of the widely attested derivatives, gabois. The verb produced fewer offspring (soi gaber, degaber, soi entregaber) for the simple reason that mor-

phemes were controlled by conjugation, while the noun freely offered itself to prosodic needs of rhyme and meter. Neither simplex nor derivative are to be confused with gabelle ‘salt tax’ (from Ar. gabala; see DEAF, 18), still less (for the moment) with mod. E. gab meaning ‘prattle’. Specialists in medieval French with whom I have consulted associate gab and its offspring with boasting, the attempt to elevate oneself, rather than

with mockery, aimed at lowering the esteem of a threatening or playful adversary. [his association testifies to the monumental fame of Le Voyage de Charlemagne, in which the theme of vaunting eclipses the other denotations of gab and its semantic family. Von Kraemer’s semantic harvest, buttressed by the profusion of examples assembled by Iobler-Lommatzsch,

von Wartburg, Baldinger, Godefroy, Huguet, and even La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, proves that gab as brag is virtually the family’s black sheep.

If we view the meanings through the prism of Baldinger’s Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien francais (DEAF), we observe that the nouns are nor-

mally translatable by ‘plaisanterie, moquerie, raillerie-—thus gabe, gabel, gabance, gaberie, gabois, gabeis—while the transitive verb with its transferal power (‘to mock, insult’) can never, obviously, mean ‘to brag’. Only occasionally may the intransitive or the reflexive acquire the boasting seme, and

the latter furthermore tends either to retain its harassing aspect:

>The noun gab and a possible verbal derivative, gablet, occur in a MS with Occitan

texts dating, in the judgment of L.-P. Thomas, from the late eleventh century (von Kraemer, 74). However, the Voyage de Charlemagne may have preceded these southern texts. See discussion of the date in chapter 4. + Favati believes that this version derives from a late thirteenth-century Picard text, but admits that a model of possibly earlier date may well have been composed in some other dialect. See Guido Favati, ed., I/ “Voyage de Charlemagne,” 123.

THE WORD 9 “Keus,” fet li rois, “ce n’est pas buen Que si vos gabez des prodomes.” (TL 4:20: Perceval, ed. Hilka, 4281)°

or to exhibit elation, pleasure, pride: Quant il la prist, estre son gre, De lui ad feit sa volunté. . .; Et quant il est od ses privez, Por mainte faiz s’en est gabez. (TL 4:20: Gaimar, 2636)

Von Kraemer’s findings, tucked away in a difficult-to-unearth testimonial volume, merit a critical summation. The semanticist starts from the premise that all of gab’s nuances spring from the primitive meaning ‘mock’

or ‘mockery’; among the meanings he draws from his sampling of early texts are: (1) ‘insult’; (2) ‘joke’ (without loss of offensiveness); (3) ‘flirt (in jest)’ with ladies in court; (4) ‘lie, dupe, deceive’, ‘coax, tell sweet lies to, give a line to’, again directed toward seduction. Von Kraemer notices, incidentally, that as the word is applied to the opposite sex, its brutality softens, but that the kernel association remains masculine and warrior-like, with a shift from conquest of a male adversary to preying on females. At the same time, the seed of invention figures among the meanings, albeit with the pejorative cast of lying and deception. The gab connotes, then, even among its primitive meanings (‘mockery, insult, offense’), a creative faculty, the desire to imagine, to tell a tall tale, to produce fiction. As he turns to the Voyage de Charlemagne (“un texte qui pose un petit probléme”), von Kraemer admits, almost reluctantly, the meaning ‘boast’ for the use of the noun (77), although the intransitive verb also displays the aberrant sense ‘to boast, tell a far-fetched tale, promise the performance of an outrageous or daring act’. For in his sampling of texts only the Voyage uniquely and unequivocally conveys the meaning that now so often springs to mind. Despite the inventiveness represented by this text’s gabs, von Kraemer argues that a fundamental connotation of mockery persists: “Sur les 13 gabs, 7, soit plus de la moitié, offrent un caractére nettement outrageux: le roi Hugon personnellement, sa famille ou ses possessions sont atteints, tantot tournés en dérision, tantot déshonorés” (79). The slim majority that >The above form of documentation indicates that the quotation is taken from ‘Tobler and Lommatzsch. When the edition is not preceded by a colon, the citation has been verified directly. [Ed. note: The line numbers shown refer to the last line of the quoted passage, following T'L’s usage.]

IO THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE he proclaims as dominant relegates a very strong minority to obscurity. In a later chapter I will return to the specific nature of the gabs in the Voyage de Charlemagne; let us retain for the moment the fact that about half the gabs \ack the nuance of ‘mockery’ and that the other half might, counter to von Kraemer’s argument, prove that Hugo coincidentally provides the center around which personal bravado is organized. The ego is so endowed, pride is so slanted, honor is so necessary, especially a warrior’s, indeed a hero’s, that a shrewd logician can easily reverse “la corrélation existant entre le rabaissement de la valeur d’autrui et le rehaussement des propres mér-

: ites” (80), a consideration that prompts von Kraemer to conclude that ‘vantardise’ incorrectly translates gab. He accepts Aebischer’s suggestion ‘galéjade’, which the Robert dictionary defines as an “histoire inventée ou exagérée, plaisanterie généralement destinée a mystifier,” and which is adopted by Tyssens in her critical translation.* The word ‘galéjade’, however, is bereft of the mockery on which von Kraemer insists. Possible causes for the peculiar use of the gab in the Voyage will emerge when we investigate

the custom it represents; meanwhile let us resume the thread of history by surveying the more solidly entrenched meanings bequeathed to medieval “Romania,” first and foremost in the /angue d’oil. In Old French the transitive verb gaber normally means ‘taunt, jeer at, tease, deride, ridicule’: Quant il furent bien esbaudi E par la champaigne esparti, Engleis les alent gabant E de paroles laidissant. (TL 4:21: Row Il, 8241)

The verb transfers insulting words to a person (the direct object), as the text restates with “de paroles laidissant”: Camoisié ot et la bouche et le nés. Voit le Guillaumes, si le prist a gaber:

Beau niés ..., De tel mestier vos estes or mellez Dont bien i pert que gaires ne savez! (TL 4:21: Nimes, 1012) 6 Petit Robert, s.v. ‘galéjade’. (Paul Robert, Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue francaise |Paris, 1967]); Madeleine ‘Tyssens, trans., Le Voyage de Charlemagne a Jerusalem et a Constantinople.

THE WORD II The lexicographers again have chosen a self-explanatory example, for the taunt is reproduced in direct discourse: “Vous vous étes engagé dans une tache / A laquelle il semble que vous n’entendez rien”.’ With a slight shift the transitive verb can occasionally signify ‘to deceive’: “De c’est gabez et decéuz” (TL 4:22: Cligés, |. 1870). Intransitivity leads, surprisingly, to greater variety. Io shield his treachery, Ganelon pretends that the dying Roland is amusing himself before his peers: Pur un sul levre vait tut le yur cornant, Devant ses pairs vait il ore gabant. (TL 4:18: Roland, 1781)

Thus Moignet here translates gabant with “s’amuser,” and TL mentions “spotten, scherzen; seinen Spott, seinen Scherz treiben,” but neither accepts ‘boast’, which could well be the correct purport in this context, as Brault (111) recognizes: “He’s showing off now before his peers.”® If speech

were added to Roland’s actions, he would be boasting. The narrator apostrophizes his readers thus in Béroul’s Tristan: Ojiez que dit la tricherresse! Mout fist que bone lecherresse; Lores gaboit a esscient Et se plaignoit de mal talent. (TL 4:18: Trist. Bér. 521°)

Although TL translates “gaboit a esscient” with “trieb ihren Spott”, i-e., “scoffed at them,” Payen is perhaps more accurate with “elle sait bien qu’elle raconte des histoires,” for the situation calls for lies as well as sneers.'° Brangien is participating in one of the many subterfuges wrought

against King Marc. Ewert summarizes: “Hear the deceitful wench!” (2:113).

TL offers a lone sample of intransitive ‘to lie’: Le fruit manjas, dunt jo t’oi dit, Que jo t’avoie contredit. ’ Fabienne Gégou, trans., Le Charroi de Nimes, 54. ® Gérard Moignet, ed. and trans., La Chanson de Roland; Gerard J. Brault, ed., The Song of Roland: An Analytical Edition.

° See Alfred Ewert, ed., The Romance of Tristran by Béroul, 1:16. 10 Jean-Charles Payen, ed. and trans., Tristan et Yseut, 18.

2 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Por co quidas estre mon per? Ne sai si tu voldras gabber. (TL 4:19: Adam, 416)

But if the lexicographers maintain that gabber means “liigen, leugnen, Ausfliichte suchen,” i.e., ‘lie, deny, dodge, seek an excuse’, Chamard prefers to

translate “voudras-tu t’en vanter?” while Frappier and Gossart in their school edition fall back on “Je ne sais si tu voudras faire le fanfaron.”!! These last-mentioned interpretations may betray once again a twentiethcentury tendency to construe gab as ‘brag’, but nothing in these translations jars with the context. The intransitive form of gaber followed by de introduces a person into the action and thus imitates the transitive sense ‘to make fun of’: “Tot li autre gabent de lui” (TL 4:19: Thebes, 4166). Only in the Voyage de Charlemagne do examples occur which indisputably mean for all experts: ‘brag, exaggerate, boast’ (TL ‘prahlen, aufschneiden’): Et Charles et Franceis se colchent a leisir. Des ore gaberont li conte et li marchis. (TL 4:19: Voy., 446)

Yet, in only a handful of texts does intransitive gaber denote the boasting so prominent in the Voyage: Mort lavoit abatu de deseur I’auferrant. “Outre,” dist il, “cuivers, ja n’en irés jabant.” CTL 4:19: Renaut de Montauban)

veeeeee JOU gabai; Par mon orguel monter quidai;

Ja ne quidai homme trouver Qui me péust d’armes outrer. (TL 4:19: Histoire des Ducs de Normandie et des Rois d’Angleterre; le Tournoi de Ham)

Sachent tous que del plus i gabent. (TL 4:19: Chronique de Guillaume Guiart)

'' Henri Chamard, ed. and trans., Le Mystére d’Adam, 75; Jean Frappier and A.-M. Gossart, Le Théatre religieux au moyen age, Classiques Larousse, 28.

THE WORD 13 Oddly, these occurrences are drawn from now out-dated nineteenthcentury editions: Renaut de Montauban, ed. Henri Michelant (Stuttgart, 1862); Histoire... ., ed. Francisque Michel (Paris, 1840); and Guillaume . . ., ed. Paulin Paris (Paris, 1848). Godefroy fails to distinguish the intransitive meanings from the transitive (‘se moquer de, railler’), and none of his samples can be indisputably identified as meaning ‘boast’. The DEAF merely repeats I°L on this score. Von Kraemer is forced to admit that the pronominal verb contains the notion of boasting, but he treats it as an exception to the rule. With some difficulty he ties ‘mock, insult’ to an example from Le Chevalier de la Charette; King Bademagu is reprimanding his men for having bound and kidnapped Lancelot: Lui n’avez vos fet nule honte, se moi non, qui le conduisoie; comant qu'il soit, la honte est moie. Mes ja ne vos an gaberoiz quant vos de moi eschaperoiz. Roques, ll. 4450-54 (cf. TL 4:20)”

There can be little doubt that the king is lamenting: “But never will you brag about it, even if you escape me.” Instead of linking gaber directly with ‘boast’, von Kraemer insists on a roundabout path through: “Vous ne serez jamais 4 méme de vous railler, de plaisanter de votre situation,” which by extension for him equals: “Vous n’aurez pas a vous louer de votre situation”

(82). Nonetheless, if TL gathers only four examples of the pronominal verb in which ‘brag, boast, be proud of’ may render the meaning, it records many examples with the sense ‘make fun of, mock’: Or se vont tuit de vos gabant, Vieil et juene, petit et grant; Recréant vos apelent tuit. (TL 4:20: Erec 2553; cf. Roques, ll. 2549-51)”

Thus Enide relies on soi gaber de to inform her husband that everyone is scoffing at him for having abandoned his knightly pursuits. While we may object to von Kraemer’s subsuming monolithically all the nuances of soz 12 Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier de la charrette, ed. Mario Roques, Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes, vol. 3, CFMA. 13 Chrétien de Troyes, Erec et Enide, ed. Mario Roques, Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes, vol. 2, CFMA.

14 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE gaber de under the single sense ‘mock’, the meaning ‘boast’ admittedly appears to garner a deviant minority. Gaber’s richness is again apparent, whether in its transitive, intransitive, or pronominal guise, in the sparkling style of Guillaume d’Angleterre’s Chrétien: Mais jou sui fole qui vos croi! Vos vos gabés, je croi, de moi. Gabés me vos? Ne me celés; Ja a gas ne m’en aparlés, Que n’en feriés mie aloser D’une fole garce gaber. —Ha! fait il, bele douce amie, Por Dieu, ne vos despisiés mie, Ne cou ne recuidiés vos pas Que rien vos aie dit a gas. Si est a certes cius afaires, Que bien sarés, dusqu’a ne waires, Se je vos ai gabee u non. Wilmotte, Il. 1227-38 (cf. TL 4:20)!4

This speech begins with an implied accusation of mendacity. “You are mak_ ing fun of me, I think” (1228). “Are you deceiving me, lying to me?” (1229).

“Never speak to me untruthfully (1230), for you will not have your self praised for making fun of a foolish maiden” (123 1-32). “You will soon know

whether I have deceived you or not” (1237-38). While “vos vos gabés de moi” (1228) can safely be translated ‘you make fun of me’, the entire passage with its play on gab centers about deceit, a semantic field which skirts, indeed intrudes upon, that of ‘telling a tall tale’. The poet’s consciousness of the chosen word family’s resources cannot be doubted, nor can we justify rigorous limitation to a narrow semantic field. The word’s vigor, its phonetic abruptness, its phonosyllabic value, coupled with the lack of precise lexical norms in Medieval French converge to offer poets and common speakers alike tempting opportunities for its use and expansion." The adverbial phrase attested in the above passage from Guillaume d’Angleterre is a case in point. Since gab means ‘lie’, one readily understands that texts abound in examples of a ga(b)s, sans nul gab (gap), pour gas, en gas, \4 Guillaume d’Angleterre, ed. Maurice Wilmotte, CFMA. 'S For a fascinating study of the relationships between sound and meaning, see Yakov Malkiel, “Studies in Secondary Phonosymbolism,” Archivio Glottologico Italiano 79 (1984 [1985]): 1-23.

THE WORD 15 par gap (DEAF, 13-14), phrases used to assert or deny ‘lies, deceitfulness, trickery’. They are commonly contrasted with a certes: “Tu as dormi, tu le sonjas! Est ¢o 4 certes ou 4 gas?” —“Co n’est pas fable, ainz est tut voir.” (TL 4:95: Adam, 889)

The semantics of the noun in isolation demands a close review. TL defines it first and, one gathers, primarily, as “Spott, sp6ttische Rede”: Tant est Kex, et fel, et pervers, plains de ranpones et d’enui, qu'il ne garra ja mes a lui, einz lira formant afeitant et gas et ranpones gitant, ausi con il fist autre jor. Ch. Lyon, ed. Roques, ll. 1352-57 (cf. TL 4:94)'°

The coupling of gas with ranpones suggests that the two are synonymous. Yvain’s thoughts are reported by the omniscient narrator, who recalls Keu’s actions in the opening scene of the romance where the seneschal has openly criticized both Calogrenant and Gueniévre for simply behaving in an appropriate fashion. Yvain dreads Keu’s jibes. Thus Keu will spout reproaches

and insults if Yvain returns to Arthur's court without proof that he has conquered the Knight of the Fountain. Buridant and Trotin translate: “Keu est si méchant, si pervers, si plein de sarcasmes haineux, qu’il ne le laissera plus échapper; au contraire, il le bafouera sans retenue, lui langant railleries

(gas) et brocards comme il le fit naguére.”"” TL lumps together its evidence of the meanings “Scherz, Spass, ‘T’andelei,” i.e. ‘joke, jest; dallying, flirtation’. Thus in the Roland the sounds of Charles’s approaching army are considered no joke by the Saracens: Seisante milie en i corent si halt, Sunent li munt e respundent li val. Paien l’entendent, nel tindrent mie en gab. Dist l’uns a l’altre: “Carlun avrum nus ja!” (TL 4:95: Roland, 2113) 16 Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier au Lyon, ed. Mario Roques, Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes, vol. 4, CFMA. 17 Claude Buridant and Jean Trotin, trans., Le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain), 36.

16 THE GABIN FRENCH LITERATURE But in courtly settings, with women present, faire un gab is seemingly synonymous with ‘tricher’: Les nons as damedeus des cieus S’entr’apelerent en lor gieus. Les reines et les puceles E les preisiees dameiseles, Que treschierent e firent guas, Furent apelees Musas. (Von Kraemer 76: Benoit de Sainte-Maure, Roman de Troie, ed. Constans, 29165—70)

Should 1. 29169 be translated: “whom they deceived and (with whom) they flirted”? Von Kraemer leaves the passage untranslated, but implies (75) that the noun means “plaisanteries qu’on dit aux dames.”

A more pertinent example is recorded by La Curne de Sainte-Palaye: “Douces paroles et beax gas. Volontiers fet pucele oir” (a line from Ovid).!® Occasionally the noun gab can be rendered by ‘nonsense’ (TL: “Unsinn,

dummes Zeug”): “Li aucun dient que ... hons de p6este ne pot estre en amende de plus soissante saus ou du cors perdre, ... mais c’est gas” (TL 4:97: Beauman, 35,5). The seriousness of the text injects sobriety into the noun’s connotation, and although in the following passage from Cligés humor lurks in the background, the situation Fenice is in threatens her with death: Je me cuidai gaber et faindre, Meis or m’estuet a certes plaindre, Que la morz n’a soing de mon gap. Mervoille ert, se vive en eschap. (TL 4:97: ed. Foerster, 6271)

Chrétien’s use illustrates a somewhat more frequent meaning: ‘dissimulation, make-believe, pretense, deceit, fraud, illusion’ (TL: “Verstellung,

‘Trug”). |

The paucity of examples recorded by TL for gab ‘boast’ lends strength to von Kraemer’s insistence that its celebrated appearance in the Voyage is an anomaly:

'8 Jean Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, Dictionnaire historique de l'ancien langage francois . . . depuis son origine gusqu’au siécle de Louis XIV, 6:3.46.

THE WORD 17 Cil fet pis la moitié Qui s’amour fait diffamer: Il rent contre douz amer, Quant son deduit fait avoir vilain cri, Quar li voir gas sont li plus anemi.

, (TL 4:97: Langfors, Recueil général des jeux-partis francais 31, \l. 44-48)

TL translates the last phrase: “die auf Wahrheit beruhenden Prahlereien sind die schlimmsten.” The passage in English: “He who causes his love to be defamed, makes his half worse: [That is what] he renders against sweet love, when he allows his pleasure to acquire an immoral renown, for the true boasts are the most hostile.” Contrasting with other usages, this gab highlights the other aspect of boasting, disclosure of a truth about oneself rather than an exaggeration. Both aspects are bracketed under the notion of self-aggrandizement. TLs two remaining instances, occurring in sententiae, reflect the truthful side of bragging: “Solom le gab dit len le voir” (TL 4:98: Morawski, Proverbes frangais, 2247): “According to the boast truth is told.” “De gab de voir si marrist l’en” (TL 4:98: Morawski, Proverbes francais, 449): “One is sorry for a boast of truth.” As in the jeu parti, goes the message, pride can lead one to betray events better kept hidden. None of these samples reflect the attitude toward boasting found in the Voyage de Charlemagne. Among the nominal derivatives of gab, almost never is the sense of boasting exclusively present. The DEAF defines gabe, gabele, gabelete, guaberete, gabet as “plaisanterie, moquerie,” lifting all these occurrences from Gautier de Coincy: Au siecle sont mesmariees Voz parentes teles i a. “Mal ait cil qui me maria!” Ce dient en lor chanconnetes. Mais entre giex et gabeletes

Les pluseurs a certes le dient, , Comment qu’entr’eles se marient. (TL 4:17-18: Chast. as non., 1098)

The lexicographers interpret: “Sie sagen es beim Scherzen, und doch ist es wahr.” Of DEAF’s two examples of gabance ‘moquerie’, one rhymes with airance (cf. Godefroy) while the other translates d/usio.

18 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE The more frequent and enduring gaberie, “moquerie, plaisanterie, raillerie” (DEAF), “Spott, Scherz” (TL), carries no sense of collectivity or abstraction, but merely represents a variant of the original masc. gab in its most widespread meaning. The translator of Gregory’s Dialogues chose gaberie for the model text’s ridiculum: Grande gaberie est, se nos creons ke nos en icele vie encor avrons mestier de teiz metauz. [Ridiculum est valde, si credimus quod in illa vita adhuc metallis talibus egeamus. |

(TL 4:22: Dial. Greg. 248,1)

mockery’): |

The following passages illustrate the nuclear meaning of gaberie (joke,

Lunges fu puis par Normandie Retraite ceste gaberte: Sire muine, stief alez, A passer planche vus gardez! (TL 4:22: Row III, 508)

[Long afterwards this joke was related across Normandy: “Sir monk, go gently; beware of crossing the little wooden bridge!”] (i.e., “stay out of trouble!”). Jourdain de Blaye, flushed with grief upon learning of his daughter’s death: “Roinne damme, ce samble gaberie! Ou est ma fille, la bele, ’eschavie? Randéz la moi sainne et sauve et en vie!” Dembowski ed., Il. 32 50-5219 (cf. TL 4:22)

With a single exception, all of [Us examples drawn from verse display gaberie at the rhyme. The demands of prosody also explain the appearance of deviant gaboi (:recoi;, gaboie (:toute voie), gabous (:tenebrous) reported by DEAF, cols. 15-16, and perhaps even gabois, although the suffix, forming a word whose lifespan exceeded that of gab itself, was sometimes attached with a humorous, jeering nuance of its own to many roots, as Malkiel and

19 Fourdain de Blaye, ed. Peter F. Dembowski (Chicago, 1969).

THE WORD Ig Uitti have shown in their meticulous tracing of its path from medieval to modern times.”° Gabois is among the most frequent derivatives of gab, but its semantic field tends to be narrowly restricted to the primitive sense ‘mockery’ or ‘joke’ (TL: “Spott, Scherz”; DEAF: “raillerie, moquerie, plaisanterie”). When Keu pretends to leave Arthur’s service, the king asks: “Est ce a certes ou a gas?” Keu’s reply confirms that the suffixal variant merely repeats the meaning of the root: Et Kex respont: “Biax sire rois, je n’ai or mestier de gabois, einz praing congié trestot a certes.” Charette, ed. Roques, 96-98 (cf. TL 4:25) Though one could translate gabois as ‘joke’, both ‘lie’ and 4 /a rigueur ‘boast’ are acceptable.

TL recognizes neither of the latter meanings for gabois; true, the overwhelming majority of its sampling tends to confirm its preference for ‘banter, fun, jest’ and ‘mockery’: (1) ‘banter, fun, jest’:

Et cil a prise et recetie Sa fame de main d’un abé. Assez 1 ot ris et gabe: ‘Tot par gabois et par risees Furent les choses devisees. (TL 4:25: Guillaume d’Angleterre, ed. Foerster, 1309)

“Things were related entirely with banter and laughter.” The closeness between root and derivative is felt in the lections of Wilmotte’s edition of

Guillaume: , Que tot par gas et par visees Furent les noeces devisees. (1295-96) (2) ‘mockery’: Arthur laments the insults that Keu levels at Perceval:

0 Yakov Malkiel and Karl Uitti, “L’Ancien frangais gab-ois, ir-ois, jargon-ois et leurs contreparties dans l’anglais d’Amérique.” In another piece, Malkiel associates the suffix with “jocular references to irritating poses and jarring languages.” See his “Drift, Slope, and Slant,” Language 57 (1981): 556.

20 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE “Ha! Kex, molt feis que cortois Del vallet quant tu le gabas' Par ton gabois tolu le m/’as, Si que jamais nel quit veoir.” Perceval, ed. Roach, 4078-81 (cf. TL 4:25)?!

But the DEAF in von Kraemer’s footsteps, identifies gabeis with the sense of ‘lie, trick, ruse’ and ‘boast’, despite the Finnish philologist’s propensity to avoid this meaning for occurrences outside the Voyage: Merveilles esteit [Ulysse] beaus parliers, Mais en dis mile chevaliers N’en aveit un plus tricheor: Ja veir ne deist a nul jor. De sa boche isseit granz gabezs, Mais mout ert sages e corteis. (Von Kraemer 76: Troie, ed. Constans, 5205-10)

Matching of meaning to the root is again apparent in gabement, the sole

alternative to gab allowed in the Voyage. Only these two forms may be admitted as unequivocally representing the particular type of boasting glorified by this poem. In all three instances, curiously, Hugues’s spy utters the word, twice at the rhyme (482, 600, 754). I will return to the formal aspects of the gab in a later chapter. Meanwhile the rule holds fast in the other texts proffering gabement. TL sets off the occurrence in Horn (1036) and defines it with the more common “Spott, Verspottung”: “S’aperceit ke l’amez, sin fera gabement”

(TL 4:18). Raphael Levy, upon finding it in thirteenth-century Hebrew-French glossaries, defined it “raillerie, plaisanterie.”” To summarize the semantic and morphological results extracted from the Old French record: the notion of boasting dominates only the following forms: (1) intransitive gaber, (2) the root noun gab, and (3) the derivative gabement (the latter, so far, exclusively in the Voyage). Although one can dispute von Kraemer’s contention that these instances include at every mo-

ment the primitive thrust of ON gabba and gabb, I readily admit with 21 William Roach, ed., The Continuations of the Old French “Perceval” of Chrétien de Troyes, vol. 1 (Philadelphia, 1949); vols. 2-5 (Philadelphia, 1950-83). 22 Raphael Levy, Contribution a la lexicographie francaise selon d’anciens textes d’origine juive, 8.v. agabois, 49.

THE WORD 21 him that the noun, whatever its shape elsewhere, shares the senses ‘mock(ery), boast’ with its other meanings ‘insult, jest, fun, lie, deceit, trick’;

it is most often ‘boast’ that risks being legitimately rejected by twentiethcentury exegetes. The semantic fields of gab are more shadowy than von Kraemer presents them, for the word is more pliable than he imagines.

Medieval authors tended to single out aspects that were dear to them. Philippe de Beaumanoir liked ‘nonsense’; Guillaume d’Angleterre’s Chrétien, ‘lie’ or ‘joke’; any author portraying Keu, ‘insult’; while the Voyage favored ‘boast’. Poets maintained a privileged nuance but expanded or con-

tracted the word to suit their verse, a maneuver typified by Gautier de Coinci. Modern interpreters (Frappier, Chamard, Ruelle, and others) may need to be reminded that gab(er) does not often mean ‘boast’, but all may wonder at a single poem’s influence over our collective perception of the word. Gab’s use spread to other Romance languages and eventually to English, where it met home-grown competitors. Let us follow von Kraemer’s foray

into “Romania” to demonstrate its triumphs, reserving for later a report on its tardy arrival in English. Not surprisingly, Old Occitan duplicates the variegated semantic field of its sister Gallo-Romance tongue, through a somewhat narrower morphological spectrum: gap, gabei, gabaria, gabaire/-ador, sobregabador, gabor, and gabeyar (Raynouard, Lexique roman, 3:412—13 [cited from Fechner,15]).

Emil Levy records 13 nuances for the verb and 1o for the noun (here translated):7?

gabar: (1) jest, (2) mock, (3) exaggerate, (4) brag, (5) threaten, (6) make

noise, (7) talk, converse, (8) jeer, poke fun at, (9) get the best of, scoff at, (10) praise, glorify; se gaber (11) jeer, (12) boast, take credit for; subst. (13) mockery. gap: (1) joke, (2) mockery, (3) praise, flattery, (4) exaggeration, (5) boasting, vainglory, (6) pomp, splendor, (7) threat, (8) noise, (g) turmoil, (10) talk, gossip.

Surprising, on the other hand, is the discovery of the earliest GalloRomance attestation of gab in eleventh-century Limousin, i.e., before its attested written appearance in the /angue doil: Lais l’om dire chi nou sab, qu’eu no I’dirai ses nul gab:

23 Emil Levy, Petit Dictionnatre provengal-francais.

22 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE mout nen issit a bo chab de virgine Maria. (Von Kraemer 74: ‘Thomas ed., ll. 13-16; punctuation emended)

In this Sponsus passage, the narrator has urged his friends in the preced-

ing strophe to abandon their conversations (gaze/) and learn the news of the Virgin Mary. “Let the ignorant man say that Ill not tell it [the news of Mary] without any exaggeration: He came to no good end (he spoke unwisely) about the Virgin Mary.” Von Kraemer prefers to translate “sans aucune plaisanterie,” which is surely acceptable, as would equally be “without any untruth.” The early attestation belies a young and still inexperienced Jud’s suggestion that the word, in his view exclusively Norman in origin, penetrated Occitania during the Plantagenet reign, for nothing explains clearly the word’s early entry, growth, and spread in Occitan unless it be that the Vikings themselves introduced it all along the French Atlantic coast.?* A well-known account of a Viking attack on Nantes in 843 is recorded in La Chronique de Nantes (ed. René Merlet [Paris, 1896], 15-17; cf. Andersson, 230-31). Surely nothing prevented them from harrying the coast all the way down to the Pyrenees.’° Whatever the mode of penetration, the Old Occitan word favors, on the semantic side, ‘boasting, praising, flattery’. If we accept the kernel ‘boasting’ rather than ‘mockery’, upon which von Kraemer insists, we can readily see the drift, under the influence of Occitan refinement, to ‘praise’ (boasting about others) and ‘flattery’ (exaggerated, contrary-to-truth boasting about others in their presence). Whatever the trajectory, modern scholars have consistently recognized the ‘boast’ seme as a characteristic strain in Occitan lyric poetry. Appel, Panzer, Roncaglia, Kohler, and Fechner rely on gap to signify a substantive motif, while Vossler and Spanke apply it to form (Fechner, 21). More recently, Chambers (RPA, 36 [1982], 122) handles

the seme as if it were unquestionably common knowledge.”

24 Jud in Archiv fiir das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, 126 [1911]:131-

32, cited in von Kraemer 74 and n. 5. 25 "Though the Chronique is stylized and thus lacks the authenticity of an eye-witness report, it is evidence of Norse-Romance contacts in the southernmost reaches of Brittany. Andersson argues convincingly that the chronicler lacked “real knowledge ... about the nature of Viking raids”; he contests not the event itself, but the vivid details that the writer pretends to know (231). ?6 Frank Chambers, review of Jean-Charles Payen’s Prince d’Aquitaine in RPh 36 (1982): 122.

THE WORD 23 The word gabar was no stranger to Guillaume [X of Aquitaine (10711127):

Qu’eu non ai soing d’estraing lati Que’m parta de mon Bon Vezi, Qu’eu sai de paraulas com van Ab un breu sermon que s’espel, Que tal se van d’amor gaban, Nos n’avem la pessa e'l coutel. (Fechner, 21: X, “Ab la dolchor del temps novel” Il. 25-30)

Fechner recognizes the contrast between gabar and celar, which we earlier observed in Old French proverbs: “De gab de voir si marrist l’en.” Guillaume brags that he and his lady have the wherewithal to maintain their love (I. 30), while others vainly boast of theirs (1. 29).?’ Gabar and rire are often coupled formulaically, thus betraying through synonymy the word’s lightheartedness (cf. Guillaume d’Angleterre in OF): Ja mais non er cortz complia On hom no gap ni no ria. (Von Kraemer, 84: Bertran de Born, 34:26) [Never was court complete where no one joked or laughed.]

Bernart de Ventadorn associates gabar with excessive talking: Lo bes e’l mals sia‘lh grazitz,

pos de me denha sol preyar. — | ara folei de trop gabar et es dreihs qu’en fos desmentitz! domna, no‘us pes si‘lh lenga ditz so c’anc mos cors no poc pessar, tatz, bocha! nems potz lengueyar, et es t’en grans mals aramitz. (Fechner 25: XL, “Can lo boschatges es floritz,” ll. 41-48) 27 Jeanroy translates: “Je n’ai nul souci d’un langage étrange qui pourrait me séparer de mon Bon Voisin. Je sais ce qui en est des paroles et de ces brefs discours qui vont se répandent; tels autres peuvent se vanter d’amour; nous, nous en avons la piéce et le couteau (c’est-a-dire nous pouvons jouir du nétre).” See Les Chansons de Guillaume IX, ed. Alfred Jeanroy, CFMA, 26.

24 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE [Good and evil be welcome token, if only she deigns to beg me.—Now I

| am acting the fool by boasting (exaggerating, over-glorifying), and it is right that you have denied me (have been false to me). Lady, let it not afflict you

if the tongue says what I could never believe. Quiet, mouth! Thou canst too much wag thy tongue and thou hast brought great harm to thyself.] A tenson in which Bernart could well have participated includes the transitive verb, which, as expected, may be translated ‘insult’: “Atressi m’avetz »

vos gabat” (Fechner, 26). Uc de Saint-Circ relies on the noun to express a common danger associated with boasting: Seigner, li gap que faitz lo ser Vos oblidon el dormidor, E ja no conquera valor Rics hom, si‘l gab non torna en ver; (Fechner, 31: Jeanroy & Salverda de Grave, Il. ro-13)

[Lord, the boasts that you make in the evening you forget in the bedroom, and never will a powerful man gain valor unless he turns the boast into truth. ]

Turning words into action is an essential part of the boast throughout the Middle Ages, particularly in the works I will examine in later chapters. The following passage in Flamenca epitomizes the distinctive meaning gaber took on in the South: E tencses ben per malastruc Tot home que lui non ames, Ja no'l vis neis ni re no'l des, Mais que n’ausis lo ver comtar. Ges hom de lui nom po[c] gabar, Car li vertatz sobrava’l dih. (Lavaud and Nelli, ed., Il. 1674-79. Cf. Von Kraemer, 84)

The passage occurs in a panegyric on the hero’s virtues. Nelli translates: “Et vous eussiez tenu pour bien disgracié du sort quiconque ne l’etit point

28 Tenson (P.-C., 70:32, on 57): “Peirol, com avetz tan estat,” I. 42.

| THE WORD 25 aimé, avant méme de l’avoir vu et d’avoir rien recu de lui, pourvu qu’il ett seulement entendu le récit exact de ses bonnes actions. A son égard il n’y

avait point d’exagération possible, car les paroles restaient toujours au dessous de la vérité” (731). Thus gabar may be literally rendered ‘exaggerate praise’ [about him], which is borne out by Chabaneau’s “louer avec exagération.”?°

Von Kraemer declares it “profondément significatif” (85) that the only

patois retaining the notion of ‘boast, praise, flatter’ are Occitan or Franco-Provengal, for through them, he concludes, rather than through French, this concept reached the Iberian peninsula (go). Although his conjecture might be bolstered by the fact that troubadour poetry traveled south and west bringing with it the baggage of the singers’ language, his hard position against the meaning ‘boast’ in northern France is not impregnable, as we have seen. Like grammars, semantic spheres leak, to paraphrase Sapir.

Nothing blocks the counter-conjecture that the ‘bragging’ nuance of gab(er) traveled to Spain along with the fame of literature in Old French. Old Occitan and Franco-Provengal (including the dialects of the Vaudois) should have influenced Italian by the mere fact of their geographic proximity, but the record shows instead that the meaning ‘mockery’ left small imprint south of the Alps. The slender evidence for the selection in Italian of ‘mockery’ among the gab semes comes not necessarily from its dominance of the semantic field in French, but may be traceable to Dante’s powerful influence. If his knowledge of troubadour poetry is unquestioned, Dante nonetheless selected, perhaps by chance, gabbo ‘fun’ as in “pigliare a gabbo” (make fun of), rather than the sense ‘boast, praise, flatter’ characteristic of Occitan, to fill out a line in the Divina Commedia: Che non é impresa da pigliare a gabbo Descriver fondo a tutto l’universo, Ne da lingua che chiami mamma e babbo. (Inferno XXXII, Il. 7-9)

The phrase piglare a gabbo lives on, but Bickersteth chose to translate it “child’s play” in his imitative verse: For to describe the basis which holds steady the entire universe is no child’s play, nor for a tongue whose cry is ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’.*° 29 C. Chabaneau, “Une Nouvelle édition du Roman de Flamenca,” 16. *° Geoffrey L. Bickersteth, ed. & trans., The Divine Comedy (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 231.

26 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE In Galician the pronominal verb still exists with the meanings ‘brag about, be proud of’, and in Portuguese both pronominal and transitive forms persist.*!

Descendants of gab, then, have survived in Italy, Galicia, and Portugal, but not in France. With the decline of chivalry, in the early sixteenth century, the French word in all its varied dress began to fade. True, Calvin parallels it with ‘se moquer’: “Tu t’es moqué de moy et de mon peuple, tu t’en es gabé avec tes princes et concubines” (Sermon on Book of Daniel: Huguet 4:247); but in the second half of the century (1579) Henri Estienne notes its disappearance from general use: Quant a ce verbe gaber, il est encore aujourd’huy en usage en quelques lieux, comme aussi gabeur, plustost que gabs: au lieu duquel on use plus volontiers de gaberie. (Precellence, 267: Huguet, 4:247)

Thus gab is replaced by gaberie, and the root word itself is absent from Cotgrave’s 1611 Dictionary, where the verb is translated: “to mocke, flout, ride; cog with, to gull, cheat cosen, fetch over” and gaberie by “mockes, flouts; tales, fibs, foisits, gleekes, gudgeons, gulleries.” Godefroy relates an anecdote culled from Varillas, Histoire de Henry III (1683), which dramatizes “un jeu entre personnes d’esprit qui s’apelloit gabber. . . . [oti] il étoit permis de railler de la maniére la plus satyrique, pourveu qu'elle fat fine” (Dictionnaire, 4:197-98, s.v. gab). After supper, recalling Charles and the Peers at

Constantinople, five or six gentilshommes are invited to play. The Duc d’Anjou taunts M. de Bussy: [S]’il étoit aussi mal endurant que luy, il s’estimeroit le plus malheureux de tous les hommes; puisqu’il se verroit réduit 4 se confiner dans un desert,

ou il n’auroit pas méme un valet, de peur de s’en faire un ennemy... . Il repartit que si Bussy étoit aussi laid que le duc d’Anjou, il seroit encore plus réduit a se cacher dans un desert, puisqu’il seroit affreux au point de n’étre regardé que par les bétes (Dictionnaire, 4:197—-98, s.v. gab).

The Duc d’Anjou and M. de Bussy, via Varillas, sang the gab’s swan song,

for while the word is registered in the 1694 dictionary of the Academy, its occurrence there reflects memory rather than usage. The immortal forty were just beginning their long tradition of failing to keep up with the times.

Moribund in the seventeenth century, gab was briefly revived by the 31'Von Kraemer, 89: J. P. Machado, Dic. etim. da lingua portuguesa; and A. de Morais Silva, Grande Dicionario da lingua portuguesa.

THE WORD 27 nineteenth century’s romantic nostalgia for the Middle Ages. Littré records an effort by Balzac to archaize his language: “Voila Lucien gabant, sautillant, léger de bonheur” (Grand Dictionnaire du 19° siecle). Today the word and all of its immediate family are extinct, as far as French is concerned.

Not so for twentieth-century English. The Oxford English Dictionary includes the substantive gab, which we have just examined; the gab common in modern usage (“conversation, prattle, talk, twaddle”; gift of gab: “talent for speaking, fluency of speech”); and also an offshoot gab, “mouth”; and finally a technical gab best defined in a nineteenth-century Nautical Dictionary (Young 1846) s.v. steam engine: “The eccentric has a notch, or gab as it is called, fitting a pin the gab-lever.” The verbs that reflect the medieval gab display meanings now obsolete: “to reproach, accuse; to scoff; to mock; to lie,” but “to boast” is listed as quasi-archaic (all examples date from the nineteenth century and were harvested from historical texts). A curious and

obsolete gab, “to project” (of teeth), appears beside the sole active and current intransitive gab, “to chatter.” Thus the vivid gab we know today involves a phonetic shape that jars our ears when we study medieval literature, for the gab of chivalry has paled in English much as in French. Nonetheless today’s word is a powerful influence in our hermeneutic processes and must be reckoned with, while the appearance of Middle English gab (‘mock, boast’, etc.) attests to the word’s vigorous former life. The intermingled histories of these homonyms obviously require disentanglement. From which direction did gab enter English? Etymologists

generally agree that the meanings under scrutiny here came through French rather than directly from the Vikings or from Scandinavian settlers. Therefore when gab ‘mock, boast’ arrived on English soil it met an identical twin gab ‘prattle’. The coincidence can be explained by the phonetic simplicity of the word, for it obviously falls in a category with child language (dada, papa, mama, etc.) and with onomatopoeic, figurative, and imitative speech. If the etymologists’ guess is correct, gab ‘prattle’ stems from ono-

matopoeic gabble. The deep-reaching kinship between the two is established, however, once we recall that an early attestation in Gallo-Romance announces English gabble: Fu fo batut, gablet e laidenjet, Sus e la crot pendut et claufiget. (Von Kraemer 74: Sponsus ll. 31-32, ed. Thomas)

No ‘prattle’ is involved in this eleventh-century Occitan text whose narrator laments: “He was beaten, scoffed at, insulted, up suspended and nailed on the cross.” In the remote past both these lexical items had to be somehow connected with the mouth, either its sounds or its shape, via visual or

28 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE auditory imitation. Thus Theodor Braune narrowed down a string of words to relatively simple origin in a short, but meaty, etymological note: “Ueber afr. gibe, fr. gibet, gibelot, gable, gabet, gabre, gober, und gaffe.”* Modern gibet ‘gallows’, OF gibet ‘sling shot’, gtb/-e,-aut ‘hoe, hook’ issue

from the notion of a forked branch and are akin to E. gib ‘support, wedge, crane-beam’, gibbet ‘gallows’, ‘crane-beam’. With apophony, gab(e and gob(ble) enter the field, both traceable to the shape, sound or action of the mouth; but Braune hesitates to drop the image of the ‘forked branch’ as a possible ultimate source, all the while pointing out its close resemblance to ‘widely opened jaws’. His semantic approach permits relating not only gab ‘mock; boast; prattle’ but also gab ‘notch’, and the verb gab ‘protrude (of teeth)’. The family grows even larger when other Germanic languages and patterns of phonetic variation are mined for mouth-like images: G. gaffeln ‘blab’, D. ‘gabberen’. Ehrismann (Fechner 16) calls attention to G. gackern; we may add gag, gape (cf. ON gapa). In German the origins include onomatopoeic imitation of the dog’s ‘yelp’, which led to the meaning, ‘jeer, mock’. ‘Thus we may broaden our net to E. yelp, gulp, which go back to OE gielpan ‘to boast’ (so significant in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight),

akin to OHG guelph ‘outcry’ and Lith. gulbinti ‘to praise’ (MerriamWebster). Thus if home-grown E. gab never meant ‘boast, mock’, etc., the language nevertheless possessed adequate means to express the sense in gilp, gielpan. Dare I conjecture that E. gie/pan and gap stem remotely from an identical root? Certainly English /l/ can drop out before a consonant, as in bwile ‘which’ (cf. G. welcher) and swilc ‘such’ (cf. G. solcher), but the loss normally occurs only before [t]; otherwise /I/ is maintained before a consonant: gilp ‘yelp’, ‘gulp’, and ea/d ‘old’, yet with exceptions like wole not

‘won't’, help ‘hep’ (dial.), and balf-penny [heipni] (Brit.); finally note the dominant modern American pronunciation of salmon, walk, almond.*? Beowulf’s exemplification of gi/p merits a side-glance, for it displays a clear semantic relationship to the use of gab in the Voyage, as we shall gather from the word's societal backdrop in a later chapter. ‘The infinitive appears in 2874: “gylpan borfte”: “he had (no) need to boast,” the 1st-person present in “no ic pes [fela] gylpe” (586): “I do not brag about it much” (Chickering: “not to boast about it”), the third person: “mordres gylped” (2055):

“boasts of murders,” the preterite: “Hréd-sigora ne gealp gold-wine Géata” (2583): “Of glorious victories did not boast the generous Geatish

32 ZrPh 36 (1912): 80-83. 33 Cf. Karl Brunner, Die englische Sprache: Thre geschichtliche Entwicklung, 2d ed., 1:383.

THE WORD 29 prince.”3* Like gab in OF the noun may form adverbial expressions: “gylpe widgripan” (2521), lit. “boastfully to grip with” (Chambers cited by Klaeber, 215: “in such a manner as to fulfill my boast”). The noun is also subject

to derivation, usually by its combining with other nouns rather than by suffixation as, say, in OF gabeerie). Thus gilp-cwide (640) ‘boasting speech’ has as its antecedent Beowulf’s vow that, to serve the Danes, he would kill

Grendel or die (632-38). Io underline the risk of vain words, the poet offers dol-gilp (509) ‘foolish boasting’ in the midst of the Unferé episode. Pertinent to our particular conception of the gabs in the Voyage is the combination gilp-hlaeden (868): Hwilum cyninges pegn, guma gilp-hlaeden, gidda gemyndig, sé de eal-fela eald-gesegena worn gemunde, word ober fand sode gebunden;

Klaeber translates “vaunt-laden,” Donaldson, “(a man) skilled at telling adventures, (songs stored in his memory),” Chickering “glorying in words,

the great old stories, who remembered them all.” Klaeber notes Gummere’s interpretation in the glossary: “a man who could sing his beot, or vaunt, in good verse.” Because the man (gua) is not necessarily a scop, as Chickering misleadingly adds, but a king’s thane (cyninges begn 867), we are free to assume that he was first and foremost a warrior, “boast-laden,” with a good memory (gidda gemyndig 868), and that his mind was consequently

full of songs and tales. Thus g7/p is fused with song, tale, adventure, great exploits; it heralds the various renderings of gab that occur in the Norse translations of the Voyage de Charlemagne: iprott ‘exploit, feat, accomplishment’ or evintyr ‘tale, story, adventure’. ‘These words represent keys to social and emotional phenomena characteristic of warriors, whether they be Vikings, thanes, or knights. ‘The instances of their emergence in literature are clues to the life that literature imitates, to customs. Though gab was part of a vigorous semantic sphere in which ‘mockery’, its earliest meaning, often prevailed, the nuance ‘boast’ was always latent. Gab and its family exhibited a spectrum of variety stretching from ‘fork’ to ‘tale-telling’. Charlemagne uses gab (arbitrarily, in von Kraemer’s view) to label a knightly custom. Let us delve into the custom the emperor must have had in mind. *4 Editions used are Fr. Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 3rd ed., and Howell D. Chickering, Jr., Beowulf: A Dual-Language Edition, the latter supplying verse translations; E. Talbot Donaldson’s prose translation Beowulf was also consulted.

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2

The Custom

IN HAVING HIS PROTAGONIST Charles explain to Hugo why the French spent

their evening in drunken boasting, the author of the Voyage chose from among the meanings of gab(er) the one that will be our main focus: Si’st tel custume en France, a Paris et a Cartres, Quant Franceis sunt culchiez, que se giuent e gabent, E si dient ambure et saver et folage. (Il. 654-56)!

Though ‘insult, mockery’ figure in the gabs in this poem, certainly the meaning ‘to boast’ is the one the character Charles meant Hugo to understand. Charles specifies a custom. One might take his remark as a spur-of-the-moment excuse, void of reference to his social horizon, were it not for the portrayal of the event itself, at a moment when Charles and the French had no reason yet to proffer excuses. They have drunk well; they are led to a magnificent sleeping hall; they are brought even more wine (“Li reis Hugun li Forz lur fait porter le vin” 437); and as they prepare

for bed, they begin their amusement: “Des ore gabberunt li cunte e li marchis” (446). True, they admire the beauty of the palace at the moment they begin their boasts. ‘Irue also, they wish Charles had purchased, or conquered, a castle so rich. But these expressions of wonder reflect the recurrent theme of the Orient’s exotic beauty, rather than a feeling of in-

| Unless otherwise noted, all subsequent references are to the edition by Jean-Louis Picherit (Birmingham, Ala., 1984). 31

32 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE feriority which, according to some commentators, inspired the gabs. ‘The knights commence their boasting as if they were at home, without great ado, relaxed, biding their time. Even if their principal purpose had been to mock (gaber in its primitive transitive sense), it cannot be denied that a custom lay behind their speech. Boasting might well be taken to reflect the sin of pride, as well as a lack of courtesy to those who are mocked. Thus God’s reprimand (676) epitomizes the conflict between Christian humility and the warrior’s traditional need for self-aggrandizement. What was this custom and what were its origins? While drinking and boasting are associated with play in most cultures (“homo ludens” in Huizinga’s term), scholars have often linked the particular kind of bragging exemplified in the gabs with Germanic, especially Norse, society. Fechner recalls that the earliest attestations of such play are in Tacitus and Paul the Deacon, but his efforts to dismiss bragging as too broad a concept to equate with the gab (more particularly with the gap in Old Occitan lyric poetry) lead him to devalue the evidence that has survived.? Let us examine the testimony. Tacitus, in Germania 32, portrays the customs associated with drinking, feasting, and oral verbal conflicts: Diem noctemque continuare potando nulli probrum. Crebrae, ut inter uinolentos, rixae raro conuiciis, saepius caede et uulneribus transiguntur. Sed et de reconciliandis inuicem inimicis et ungendis adfinitatibus et adsciscendis principibus, de pace denique ac bello plerumque in conuiuiis consultant, tamquam nullo magis tempore aut ad simplicis cogitationes pateat animus aut ad magnas incalescat.’ [Drinking day and night is a shame for no one. Quarrels are frequent, as to be expected from imbibers, and rarely terminate with mere insults, but more often with murder and maim. Furthermore, reconciliation between enemies, conclusion of family alliances, choice of leaders, peace and finally war are treated most often at banquets, for there is, they believe, no more fa-

vorable time in which the soul would open up to frank deliberations or inspire great acts. |

Tacitus was impressed by the drinking capacity of the Germanic tribesmen, and his remarks as a foreign observer hint that mealtimes were often chosen for the resolution of conflicts, which in an oral culture would entail swear? Jorg-Ulrich Fechner, “Zum Gap in der Altprovenzalischen Lyrik,” 17. > "Tacitus, ed. Jacques Perret, 84. The translations from Tacitus are my own, but depend heavily on Perret’s French rendition.

THE CUSTOM 33 ing and oath-taking, and which might well lead, after the consumption of fermented beverages, not only to insults but to bodily harm and even murder. The mention of choosing leaders (“adsciscendis principibus”) and of other legal actions suggests that banquets were a locus of ceremony and social convention, adumbrating such Viking rites as heitstrenging and mannjafnaor, which will be discussed below. Boasting, pride, self-aggrandizement are surely subsumed in the phrase “ad magnas incalescat”: no better time was there for opening one’s soul or inspiring action, “warming up to” (as if from drinking mead) great things. The consequences of one’s words are not forgotten the next morning, after

the effects of drink have worn off: “Postera die retractatur, et salua utriusque temporis ratio est: deliberant dum fingere nesciunt, consituunt dum errare non possunt.” (Perret, 84). [The next day matters are undertaken anew and reason reigns in both occasions: they deliberate while they cannot feign; they decide when they cannot err.] Mealtime in the hall, the historian would have us believe, is the most propitious occasion for pivotal social

deliberation among these Northern peoples, rather than the formal settings, the Forum or the Senate, familiar to Tacitus from Mediterranean tradition. If ‘Lacitus’s generalizing remarks corroborate the notion that the Germanic peoples regarded the banquet as a center for social action and activities, our next witness relates a more specific incident. Fechner proposes Paul the Deacon’s History of the Langobards as early testimony to the linking of disputes to banquets.* Turisind, king of the Gepidae, accepts his former enemies, Albion and some forty Langobards, as guests at the table. But reminded that his son had sat at the same table where his slayer was about to feast, ‘Turisind cannot restrain his grief. The king’s surviving son insults the Langobards: “The mares that you resemble have white fetlocks.” The Langobards wore white leggings, which the offending prince links to the belief that white feet in horses betrayed weakness of breed. Furthermore, to call the Langobards mares was to impugn their manhood.’ A Langobard retorts that the bones of the defeated prince can be found scattered about like a wild beast’s in the field where he was kicked by those mares. If the banquet ends in merriment (“laetis animis convivium peragunt”), its happy finish is possible only because King Turisind has restrained his men from attacking the Langobards, who after the jeers leaped back from the table with their hands on their swordhilts. Exchanging insults, or boasts, could * Paul the Deacon, History of the Langobards, trans. William Dudley Foulke, 44-45. > Joaquin Martinez Pizarro discusses this insult and cites several others of the same

type in “Studies on the Function and Context of the Sena in Early Germanic Narrative,” 5, 57.

34 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE quite naturally lead to serious consequences, but in this episode bloodshed is avoided by the host’s insistence that guests in his house should remain free from harm. Although Paul the Deacon relates the incident as if it were an isolated moment in history, Grénbech’s comments support the notion that such events were recurrent.° Drawing swords during drinking bouts, he tells us, formed part of a ritual demonstrating the warrior’s role before

| his protector. The centrality of mealtime is corroborated by a custom that Paul identifies through the words of Albion’s father: “You know,” [his father

says to him], “that it is not the custom among us that the son of the king should eat with his father unless he first receives his arms from the king of a foreign nation” (Langobards, I, 23). In Beowulf, beer and boasting habitually go together: Ful oft gebéotedon béore druncne ofer ealowege oretmecgas pet hie in béor-sele bidan woldon Grendles gape mid gryrum ecga. (480-83)’

[Hrodgar relates, in Chickering’s translation: Often indeed my warrior thanes, boasted over ale-horns, bold in their mead, that they would meet Grendel’s attack in the banquet hall with a rush of swords. ]®

It is not until after beer has been served (“a thane did his office, carried in his hands the gold ale-flagons, poured bright mead”), that Unferd feels compelled to begin his verbal attack against Beowulf: “Hwaet, bu worn fela, wine min Unferd, béore druncen ymb Brecan sprece, (530-31)

[Beowulf takes up the challenge: “What a great deal, Unferd my friend, full of beer, you have said about Breca,] 6 Wilhelm Gronbech, Kultur und Religion der Germanen, 2:192. ’ Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Frederick Klaeber. ® Beowulf: A Dual-Language Edition, ed. and trans. Howell D. Chickering, Jr., 49q4—96. ‘Translations of Beowulf are henceforth Chickering’s unless otherwise noted.

THE CUSTOM 35 After the exchange between Unfer6d and Beowulf, to which I shall return in a moment, the hero ratifies his boast to slay Grendel without benefit of

arms (425-40) by drinking from the cup that Queen Wealhpeow offers him:

The lady of the Helmings walked through the hall offered the jeweled cup to veterans and youths, until the time came that the courteous queen, splendid in rings, excellent in virtues, came to Beowulf, brought him the mead. (620-24)

In the ceremonies of inheritance treated by Gronbech (2:192), drinking from the cup of mead makes a vow official and marks a turning point in the family history. In Hrodgar’s high hall, the beer-consumption and rejoicing cease when the thanes bed down. The drinking and boasting prefigure the gab-session at Constantinople in the most general, natural, and predictable framework, without enough similarity to claim that Beowulf exemplifies a sure precedent. Pio Rajna was among the first to note the resemblances, observing that the exaggeration in Beowulf’s vow (to kill without his sword) occurs at the same time of day (bedtime) as the gabs in the Voyage de Charlemagne.’ Johan Huizinga, surveying the play element in world civilization, logically juxtaposes the Unferd episode with the Voyage in his Homo Ludens.'© But Carol J. Clover’s article, “The Germanic Context

of the Unferp Episode,” offers the most thorough and convincing demonstration of the custom and the literary tradition underlying its emergence in Beowulf and, I maintain, in the Voyage de Charlemagne."

Clover links the flyting to the verbal exchange between Unferd and Beowulf. In her survey she establishes a morphology of the flyting by cataloguing the recurrent features of locus, actors, action, substance, and consequences (447) in a corpus of some forty examples drawn from Old Norse literature (446). 1. Spatially, the setting is either outside, with a body of water dividing the contenders, or, as in Beowulf, inside a hall or a court. The oral exchange arises spontaneously, as in Paul’s History of the Langobards, or is specifically introduced as a pastime linked to a drinking custom. Alcohol can play a role equal to the word exchange itself, and whenever it appears in Clover’s sources “the atmosphere of heavy drinking [is] unanimously stressed” (449). ° Rajna, Le Origini dell’ epopea francese, 405-6. 10 Huizinga, Homo Ludens, 70.

1 Clover, “The Germanic Context,” 444-68.

36 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE 2. The actors, or contenders, may be unknown to each other; when strangers meet, one of them is usually a hero visiting a foreign land, where he is assaulted by mockery and challenges. The new territory is a beach or the entryway of a hall. Clover detects the frequent appearance of “delegates,” younger or secondary persons who stand in for the major

figure (450). 3. [he formal characteristics of the flyting resemble a debate containing principally “Claim, Defense, and Counterclaim” (Clover, 452). Poetic repetitions, parallelisms, formulae, and the adversary’s name hint at a “rhetorical substructure” (452). 4. The substance of the flyting is above all epitomized in boasts and insults, accompanied by varying doses of threats, curses, and vows. Boasts focus on questions of masculinity: the conquest of awesome opponents, action in battle, feats of strength, and rape. Vows predict great deeds and can develop into a contest “as in the escalating sequence of oaths in Jémsvikinga saga” (Clover, 452). 5. Consequences do not necessarily include violence, Clover insists. She

notes Orvar-Odds saga in which a drinking flyting, after a grandiose boast, ends with the three contestants going to bed. If the flyting lacks a violent ending within the contest itself, it can set in motion a chain of events that might include the violence of “a revenge episode” (459). The similarities to the gab-session in the Voyage are striking.

1. The geographical setting, in Constantinople, includes a body of water (“devers les porz de mer uit un vent venir” 369), but more significantly, the speeches are made within the palace, a courtly space, of a foreign king. As for the consumption of alcohol, the narrator and his character Charles insist on the ample flow of wine several times. At dinner:

A espandant lur portent le vin et le clarez, (412) After the meal, in the immense bedroom:

Li reis Hugun li Forz lur fait porter le vin. (437)

'2 Tn tracing the structure of the senna, Martinez Pizarro (135-46) notes the constant role of delegates. The hero himself may not enter the game. 1 Martinez Pizarro found that the senna often required a water setting. A river or lake frequently separated the adversaries (138). The mannjafnadr belonged in the ale hall and was an amusing but dangerous parlor game (13).

THE CUSTOM 37 Charles reminds Hugo the morning after: “Sire,” dist Carlemaines, “ersair nus herbergastes,

Del vin e del claret asez nus en donastes. . . . (652-53) Charles confesses to the Twelve Peers: “Seignurs,” dist l’emperere, “mal nus est avenud: Del vin e del claret tant etimes beiid,

E desimes tel chose que estre ne deiist!” (664-66) 2. The contenders are Charles and his knights on the one side, and Hugo, through his representative, on the other. Although the escut, the “listener,” is more a passive commentator during the boasting session than a provocateur like Unferd, his presence is immediately justified if we compare him to the king’s delegate, one of those “secondary figures (usually younger) [who] speak on behalf or instead of major figures (usually older)” (Clover, 450). Modern readers tend to think of the delegate as a “spy,” but close scrutiny of the text discloses that the narrator always refers to him as /’esc(h)ut, the “listener” (Koschwitz lists 14 occurrences between Il. 465 and 625). Only after Charles’s anxiety is aroused does

the label “spy” emerge, and it is used only by Charles (Il. 651, 687). I concede that the author may have wished to portray the emperor as shocked to learn that Hugo had planted a listener in the sleeping hall, thus showing Charles’s ignorance of the strange foreign “custom,” but such a portrayal, if it was indeed intended, fails to undermine my con-

tention that the substructure of the gab-session reflects the flyting. Charles’s choice of the word “spy” figures in an angry retort, a jibe, set in the framework of verbal warfare. “The job of flyting delegate appears to have been part-time, ad hoc, and thankless” (Clover, 467). 3. I will investigate in detail the formal and stylistic structures of the gab

in a later chapter. Suffice it to note here that each speech is cast in a perceptible and repeated form, a “package” that contains an individualized boast.

4. The heart of the gab is a boast, or a vow, to perform an extraordinary military, athletic, acrobatic, or, in one instance, sexual feat. The content of the gabs has led scholars to search for sources in Celtic literatures and

in the French epic. If Roland boasts of his horn-blowing prowess, Charles his skill with the sword, Guillaume his legendary strength (all of which tend to individualize the gab, to tie words to biographies), a number of the promised feats probably have their sources in prior traditions. Thus Cross linked Archbishop Turpin’s boast in the Voyage with

38 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Cuchulainn’s ubullcless, an “apple-feat” recounted in the saga Tain Bo Cuailnge, or with the Irish clessomnagh (juggler) portrayed in the Togail Bruidne Da Derga: Nine swords in his hand, and nine silver shields, and nine apples of gold. He throws each of them upwards, and none of them falls on the ground,

and there was only one of them on his palm; each of them rising and falling past another is just like the movement to and fro of bees in a day of beauty.'*

Cross discovers parallels in three Irish sagas to Gerin’s bragging that he will catch a lance thrown by himself for a distance of at least a league (351). He uncovers similar Irish prefigurations for Berengier’s leap onto

spear points, Bertrand’s using shields for wings, Naimon’s shaking Hugo’s armor to bits, and Ogier’s tossing the whirling palace about by its central pillar. These similarities, however, become hazy as he delves further into Celtic motifs. Furthermore, to repeat Gaston Paris’s observation of over a hundred years ago, many links with Scandinavian

literature have been established.'* It is well known that Vikings had invaded the area around Paris, Saint-Denis, and Chartres in the ninth century and had settled in Normandy by the tenth.!¢ Thus transmission from Scandinavia poses no real problem, while the conduit between Ireland and Normandy requires conjecture. Norsemen as portrayed in their literature demonstrated talents matching both the French and the Irish in theirs: King Olaf Tryggvason could “juggle three daggers at once, always catching them by the hilts,” and was endowed with such acrobatic skill that he could “walk from oar to oar outside the railing of his longship while the men were rowing”.!’ In the skaldic Rekstefja a warrior named Flame-Bladr also juggled daggers and walked along the oar-railings. Snorri Sturluson cites in the Magnissona saga a noble Norwegian, Harald Gille, who was reared in Ireland and famous for his athletic ability. When he returned to Norway, he dem-

onstrated he could run faster than his competitor Magnts could make his horse gallop. But he earned his father’s reproaches for swilling ale until he rendered himself insane and feeble, often falling into a stupor. King Sigurdér, the father, had just returned from the Holy Land when he delivered this sermon to his son (Russom, 6). Among qualifications 1+"Tom Peete Cross, “Observations on the Pélerinage Charlemagne,” 350. '5 Paris, “La Chanson du Peélerinage de Charlemagne,” 9-10. 16 In grr Charles the Simple yielded Rouen and the lower Seine valley to Rollo. See P. H. Sawyer, Kings and Vikings. '7 Geoffrey R. Russom, “A Germanic Concept of Nobility,” 6.

THE CUSTOM 39 expected of Scandinavian leaders were wealth, physical strength, fighting ability, eloquence, acrobatics, and tree-climbing skill, all labeled 7prottir, a word sometimes used to translate gab, but which Russom translates “gentlemanly accomplishments” (4-5). Some of the same skills are recommended by the Valkyrie Sigdrifa in an Eddic poem comprising speeches addressed to Sigurd Volsung. The Valkyrie warns against the hazards of drink and song, as if to announce the gabs and their consequences for the peers of France: Songr oc ol hefr seggiom verit morgom at mootrega, sumom at bana, sumom at bolstofom; figld er, pat er tregr fira. [Song and ale have been to men, oO many, a great misfortune,

death to some, disaster to others; many are those it betrays.] (Cited by Russom, 4)

Thus there is ample evidence that a thriving tradition was available in Scandinavia to supply substance for the gabs. But even if one were to erant a Celtic influence on the Voyage de Charlemagne, my goal is not to establish sources, but to determine if a cultural phenomenon lay behind Charles’s remark that he and the Peers were practicing a custom of the land, i.e., an organized set of speech acts repeatable and habitual.

5. Lhe outcome of flytings, Clover insists, is not necessarily violent. Episodes may end in tranquil silence; the parties may retire to bed or even fall in love (459), but the pronouncements, once the contest is over, may have further consequences as dictated by the narrative. The gabs are not mere boasts of, say, past exploits; they are mirthful vows directed toward

the future. It follows that since the episode is embedded in narrative, within literature, words may lead to action within the story itself. Within that context, the gab, as well as the flyting, engenders action. ‘Thus the

escut is essential to the furthering of the plot, for as the King’s representative he conveys the information to his lord. Hugo’s two-sided self, like the major figures in the flytings (450), shifts from the hospitable to the hostile and brings about the accomplishment of at least three of the speech acts, a sufficient sampling to spur the narrative on its way. Flyting is a generic term, an umbrella covering a variety of verbal confrontations (senna, mannjafnaor, heitstrenging, etc.). While Clover has indisputably proven the Germanic context of the Unferd episode in Beowulf by sketching a morphology of the flyting, the poem also contains the term

40 THE GAB IN FRENCH‘'‘LITERATURE gilp, which was discussed briefly in the preceding chapter. Grénbech sees in the gi/p an obligation whose future outcome is unpredictable, while the verbal form implies that the accomplishment of the obligation must result in fame (2:393, cf. Fechner, 17). Gi/p, then, resembles the gab in its vowlike, future-oriented aspect. While English ‘boast’ may point to either past or future, gi/p’s German cousin ge/f represents the warrior’s effort to further his fame by proclaiming information about himself, the bright moments of his past, and thus differs from the gab.'® That the two earliest surviving pieces of German writing concern swearing (Die Strassburger Eide) and boasting (Das Hildebrandslied) may be more than pure chance. While the Oaths, like the gabs, point to future action, the tragic exchange of insults between father and son in the enigmatic lied centers on the past: The Song of Hildebrand

I have heard it said that two warriors, Hildebrand and Hadubrand, father and son, from two warring armies, challenged each other. They fixed their armor, fastened their hauberks, girded their swords, and, fearless, rode forth from the ranks ready to fight. Hildebrand, the older, the more experienced and wiser, spoke first. He asked if his opponent’s father was present in the army: “[Pray tell me] what family is yours? Mention but one name, and I will know the others. Young man, I know all men in the realm.” Hildebrand’s son, Hadubrand, replied: “The old and the wise among my people, those of by-gone days, told me that my father was called Hildebrand.

My name is Hadubrand. Long ago, he fled eastward away from Ottokar’s fury, along with Dietrich’s army. He abandoned his suffering wife in his house, and left his child in the crib without protection or property. He rode eastward because Dietrich needed my father, but Dietrich lost him and thus also his allies. His hostility toward Ottokar was as unmatched as his devotion toward Dietrich. He was always first in battle, because combat was his cherished aim. His fame was known to valiant men. I cannot believe that he is still alive.”

Hildebrand, Heribrand’s son, continued: “The highest God in heaven knows that you never measured your strength in battle with a blood relative.” He untied from his arm the rings of gold which the King, Lord of the Huns, had chosen for him from his own treasure. “This I give you out of love.”

But Hadubrand, Hildebrand’s son, answered: “Gifts should be accepted

with the spear tip pointed forward. You, old Hun, think you are too 18 G, Ehrismann, “Zum Hildebrandsliede,” 2809.

THE CUSTOM Al clever for me, that you can spin words around me. You plan to thrust your spear at me. Even old, you are still bursting with trickery. For this is what they told me, those who travel the sea, the immense sea in the west: that war ripped him away. Dead is Hildebrand, Heribrand’s son.” Hildebrand, Heribrand’s son, spoke: “Woe now, all governing Lord God! Sorrow will come about. I stayed away sixty summers and winters, ever since the day I joined this band, but nowhere did I meet death. Now my own kin is about to strike me with his blade, kill me with his sword, unless I destroy him. You can easily, if you are truly strong, win the armor of an aged man,

strip him of booty, as if you had a right to it. He would be the greatest coward of the Eastern army, though, if he refused the fight. Since you hunger so for combat, it must be found out who will lose his armor today and who will carry away both hauberks.” They let fly the first ashen spears, the steel tips forward, and they were imbedded in shields. They rammed each other so that the encrusted gems were jarred and broken loose. They struck mightily the wieldy bucklers until their linden wood burst from the seams, splintered by the blades.’

The crucial elements in this encounter, long recognized by scholars, are heroic pride and the exchange of information. Each warrior proclaims a

truth, unexaggerated, plausible, but difficult for the other to accept on account of the force of rumor and legend. When Hadubrand brags, he establishes history. His father, he declares, was a fierce and famous warrior. His insults stem from a fighter’s legitimate suspicions about his adversary’s

motives. He suspects his opponent of relying on trickery to compensate for weaknesses brought on by age. Hildebrand’s exclamation that he has wandered unscathed for sixty years is an attempt to defend his honor with truth rather than with exaggerated boasting. For Ehrismann, these lines “tragen das Geprige eines Gelfs” (284). The confrontation explores, then, the problematics of taking an opponent at his word and the validity of the imminent combat, rather than engagement in a boasting contest around the banquet table. Although the participants risk life and limb in their dispute, their aim is not to outdo each other in words, but to establish identity. The speech is directed toward the past, not the future, and even though the verbal exchange seems to aim at fact, at least for Hildebrand, the truth is disregarded. Emotions rather than words determine future action. With the gabs, the boaster is subsequently held accountable for his words. Thus, despite the verbal probing that the poem represents, the 19 Translation by Gerhild S. Williams and me, based on the edition of Das Hildebrandslied by Wilhelm Braune, 84-85, which is listed in the Bibliography with other translations and editions consulted.

42 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Hildebrandslied manifests a strain of pride tangential to the custom I seek to outline. If a geographical origin for the custom exists, it would seem to be north-

erly (or northwesterly) rather than to the east, for certain Scandinavian practices exhibit as much kinship with the gab as does the flyting, namely the heitstrenging and the mannjafnadr. Nyrop, Gronbech, and Knudson, among others, have singled out a parallel to the gabs, the well-known episode of the J6msvikings’ oaths.*° Beer-drinking, a contest, a mealtable, a tranquil bedding-down, and morning-after consequences characterize the event, which is related in the fomsvikinga saga and in Snorri Sturluson’s biography of Olaf Tryggvason in the Heimskringla.*' Coincidentally, the Fomsvikinga saga opens with a reminiscence of Charlemagne: Arnfinnr of Saxony, friend of King Gormr of Denmark, holds his fief from the emperor. (Arnfinnr’s son, born of incest, is adopted by Gormr, an event that establishes the initial conflict of the saga.) Although the plot differs drastically from that of the Voyage, a woman, Astrid, is ultimately responsible for the boasting contest, just as Charlemagne’s spouse provides a springboard to the action of the Voyage. Astrid marries Sigvaldi, the Jomsviking chieftain, on condition that he lure King Sveinn Fork-Beard into his power. ‘The newlywed obliges by kidnapping Sveinn and forcing him to marry Astrid’s

ugly sister. Later at the death of Sigvaldi’s father (Earl Strut Haraldr), Sveinn finds a means to inflict his vengeance. He invites Sigvaldi and his brother Porkell to Denmark to perform the rites of inheritance. ‘The transfer of property involved a feast, the arvel, a ceremonial drinking of beer. Since the Old Norse word erfa ‘to inherit’ meant both ‘to drink inheritance beer’ and ‘to take up one’s estate’ (Gronbech, 2:192), the events described in the texts reflect the existence of a custom that had been institutionalized. The author of the Joémsvikinga saga relates that Sveinn prepared a magnificent feast and ordered that the strongest drink in the hall be served to the 20 Nyrop, Den oldfranske heltedigtning, 120 n. 2, and “Sone de Nansai et la Norvége,” 558 (cf. Von Kraemer 81 n. 10); Grénbech, Kultur und Religion, 2:192; Knudson, “Serments téméraire,” 97. 21 "The Jomsviking episode is based on the great naval battle of 985 in Hjorunga Bay (Horundar fjord), in which Earl Haékon crushed an invading fleet of Danes. At least five Icelandic skdlds, under the Norwegian banner, were present. The saga is extant from some two centuries after the event and, like the Chanson de Roland, stretches a historical event to folkloric, epic, and lyric dimensions. Heimskringla is attributed to the famous Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson (ca. 1179-1241). Snorri relates with somewhat less

detail than the Fémsvikinga saga the story of the vows, invasion, storm, defeat, beheadings, and Vagn’s marriage to Porkell leira’s daughter. See The Saga of the Fomsvikings,

ed. and trans. N. F. Blake; Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla I, chs. 34-43, in IF 26, 6375; Lee M. Hollander, trans., The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, chs. 34-43, in Heimskringla, 174-86.

THE CUSTOM 43 Vikings, who consumed great quantities of it with unrestrained eagerness. Mischievously calculating the peak of their drunkenness, and observing that their tongues were loose, he suggested an appropriate amusement: “Everyone is enjoying himself well here, but it would be fitting if for the general entertainment we took to some sport which would be remembered long afterwards. .. . I know it’s the custom at such banquets to make oaths to enhance one’s reputation” (7S 28).”?

The vow-pronouncing, heitstrenging, Sveinn asserts, will be extraordinary, in accordance with the Jomsvikings’ fame. As host and the warrior of highest rank present, Sveinn himself makes the first vow. Snorri Sturluson records it: “On the first day of the banquet, before King Svein ascended the highseat of his father, he drank to his memory and made the vow that before three years had passed he would have invaded England with his army and killed King Athelred or driven him from his country” (Hollander, 175; cf. IF 26:274).

Not to be outdone, Sigvaldi, the highest ranking guest, matches his host’s vow by swearing to conquer Norway within three years.’ Sigvaldi, by the way, was of great height, had a crooked nose, and moved about briskly, thus combining the traditional physical characteristics of Charlemagne and Guillaume d’Orange. Sveinn, as master of ceremonies, comments on the vow and invites another drunken Viking, Porkell the Tall, to do at least as well. In turn the king urges Bui the Stout, Sigurédr kapa, Vagn Akason, and Bjorn the Welshman to “strengja heit,” and to each new vow he appends his judgment. The vows themselves lack the imagination of the gabs, since each Viking imitates his predecessor by promising to accompany Sigvaldi in the Norwegian enterprise, but one variation has attracted scholars’ attention. Vagn, the youngest and most unruly of the bunch, vows not

only to follow his chieftain abroad but to kill his adversary, Porkell leira, “and go to bed with his daughter Ingibjerg, without the consent of her relations” (7S 29). Like Olivier in the Voyage, he will succeed. And like

22 The translations are Blake’s unless otherwise noted. 23"The Fomsvikinga saga reports that Sveinn promises to obtain the English kingdom before winter’s end, but both versions include the three-year deadline for Sigvaldi. The tradition behind the texts, whether literary or historical, corroborates the competitiveness involved in the game.

44 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Roland, he is not only immoderate but has a special attachment to his uncle,

Bui, the only elder he is willing to obey. After their vows, all go to bed, obviously in a stupor, since the next morning they fail to remember what they have said. Even though Sigvaldi excuses them with the aphorism that “a man [is] not himself when drunk” (JS, 29), all undertake the invasion of Norway, which ends in failure. While a spirit of jovial camaraderie seems to reign, as it does in the chambers of Hugo’s palace, conflict between two principal contenders underlies the boasting. Sveinn, like Hugo, is shrewd, strong and full of trickery: “Sages fud e membrez, mais plains de maleviz” (438). In contrast with the flyting, in which normally only two contenders vie, the Vikings form a company. No delegate is necessary in Sveinn’s hall; he speaks for himself, thus combining what were two separate roles in the Voyage: he acts like Charles, who invites each of the Twelve Peers to make his boast, and like the escut, who comments on each gab. Although Sveinn, in his trickery, is antagonistic toward the Vikings, the hostility of the vows is directed outward, to the common enemies England and Norway, not inward, Beowulflike, in the form of insults, jeers, and mockery among the contestants present. If the Vikings lack the imagination of the French at Constantinople, the aftermath of their boasts remains death-defying. Sigvaldi flees his at-

tackers when faced with a ferocious hailstorm dealt him by the goddess borgerér Holgabridr (36-37). Bui the Stout is hacked across the mouth, loses both hands, and leaps into the sea with his arm stumps thrust through the handles of a treasure chest (102). Porkell the ‘Tall and Sigurdr kapa, having sworn to serve these two in battle or abandon them when they fall, deem their vows accomplished and return to Denmark. Vagn, with the help

of Bjérn the Welshman, barely escapes losing his head and kills Porkel leira. His boast only half attained, he completes it later by managing to marry Ingibjerg with her family’s consent, a feat which Hollander considers an extraordinary invention of the author (112-13). Bjorn is freed under the

conditions that Vagn places on his enemies (113). Thus all but Sigvaldi fulfill their vows. We note, then, that the Vikings’ oaths lead to dire consequences, that most are achieved even though disgrace befalls the warrior band, and that a divinity intervenes in the aftermath. In the fictitious Constantinople, the French knights flirt with disgrace both before (in Hugo’s whirling palace) and after (upon the discovery of the gabs) their boasts. Fortunately divine intervention works in their favor, but, curiously, God’s hand is most visible in the rising waters (a coincidental parallel to borger6r’s hailstorm) that cause everyone, including the French, to seek safety in trees

or buildings. Perhaps it is almost a given in medieval plot-building that exaggerated boasting will sooner or later bring on heaven’s wrath. Two further coincidences with the Voyage de Charlemagne come to mind:

(x) Both narrators refuse to show their hands, keeping outcomes in sus-

THE CUSTOM 45 pense and yielding to no event-predicting emotional outbursts.”*+ (2) Like

Charles, Sigvaldi returns to his wife for a brief confrontation, for it was she who originally motivated the rivalry with Sveinn, and thus the subsequent drunken vows in the adversary’s realm. My purpose here, I repeat, is not to establish dependency, source, or intertextual relationship, but to show that the Germanic practices as recorded in the surviving documents are consonant with Charles’s remark that he and the Peers were reviving a custom of his homeland. In other words, literature is imitating society with the result that a variety of forms crystallize, all springing from an identifiable center.

Gronbech, in his discussion of Sveinn’s feast, mentions coincidentally the banquet that King Ingjald prepared at Uppsala for the transmission of his inheritance (2:192). Irickery turns to treachery in this chapter of Norse history, but the host’s tactics remain focused on drinking and festivity. The description of the ceremony is a principal source for Grénbech’s authoritative comments: Pat var sidvenja i bann tima, bar er erfi skyldi gera eptir konunga eda jarla, pa skyldi sa, er gerdi ok til arfs skyldi leida, sitja 4 skerinni fyrir hasetinu allt par til, er inn veri borit full, pat er kallat var bragafull, skyldi s4 pa standa upp { moti bragafulli ok strengyja heit, drekka af fullit sidan, sidan skyldi hann leida i haseti, pat sem atti fadir hans. Ynglinga saga, ch. 36 (IF 26:66).

[It was custom at that time, when a funeral feast was prepared to honor a departed king or earl, that the one who prepared the feast and was to be inducted into the inheritance was to sit on the step before the high-seat until the beaker called the bragarfull was brought in; and then he was to stand up to receive it and make a vow, then quaff the beaker, whereupon he was to be inducted in the high-seat which his father had occupied. Then he had come into the rightful inheritance to succeed him.] (Hollander, Heimskringla, 39)

King Ingjald waits until the guests, six kings from neighboring districts,

are drunk, then orders his men to burn down the hall where they are sleeping and to slaughter any who try to escape. Snorri Sturluson furnishes

no more details than these, but they suffice to re-affirm a basic simple structure: banquet, oath-swearing, drinking, bed, and a menacing outcome (here deadly). Life is at stake within the context of the narrative. 24 Cf. the narrator’s announcements of future events in the Oxford Chanson de Roland, ed. Brault, Il. 95, 178-79, 716.

46 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE The above passage introduces the intriguing word bragafull, which also occurs with the variant bragarfull. It signifies the ceremonial inheritance cup and, according to Snorri Sturluson, derives its name from a supposed god of poetry called Bragi. In Old Swedish, bragr did indeed mean ‘poetry’. It is tempting to link the cup and the god with English ‘brag’, but bragi also signified ‘prince’, and the bragafull may have been simply ‘a king’s drink’, without any hint of poetic might. Monsen conjectured that bragafull was a congener of E. ‘brain, brew’, Fr. “‘brasser’, and G. ‘brauen’.*> If these connections be fantasy, the associations with ské/d (poet), scop (poet), and poetic mead are richly enmeshed in Snorra Edda verse. Snorri himself credited mead with the origin of poetry. He construed a tale in which the spittle of two warring tribes was transformed with honey and blood into a potable

mead with the help of dwarves. Whoever drank it became a skd/d or a scholar. Carol Clover’s masterful essay showing the intimate connection between alcohol and poetry abounds with examples from a large corpus of early skaldic poetry.° Digterdrikken (cf. G. ‘Dichterdrinken’) was a synonym for poetry among the skd/ds (70). ‘The poets constantly referred to the

poetic mead rushing from the mouth (70), getting drunk from the beer (73), pouring out the dwarf’s drink (74), bringing forth the drink of the gods (75), etc., as kennings for composing verse.””? While bragi may not be related to E. ‘brag’, both skd/d and scop, former words for ‘poet’, have mod-

ern descendants in ‘scold’ and ‘scoff’, both of which participate in the semantic field of gab. Thus the nexus of flyting-poetry-drinking proves itself once again to be an institution deeply entrenched in Scandinavian civilization.

Fechner, among others, has suggested that the smannjafnadr (mancomparison) is a type of boasting which could have been a precursor to the gab, especially in relationship to lyric poetry. ‘This boasting contest has its foundations in jurisprudence; it was a means of making a settlement between two contenders after a fight. It was also an amusement, customarily preceded by drinking, and not restricted to Scandinavia since similar cus-

toms are attested in Irish sagas. The man-comparison could take two courses: (1) each contestant attempted to outdo his companions in boasting of his great deeds, or (2) they chose a master and bragged about him. The contest might end in tranquillity, but more often in anger, or even in murder.” A classic example occurs in the Magnussona saga (ch. 21), in which 25 Snorre Sturlason, Heimskringla, trans. Monsen and Smith, 26 n. 3. 26 Clover, “Skaldic Sensibility.” 27 Joseph Bédier has recorded similar notions in French Goliardic poetry: “Vins fait les sons .. .” and “la cervoise nos chantera. Alleluia!” See Les Fabliaux, 394. 28 Fyrbygeja saga, ch. 37: see A. Holtsmark, “Mannjevning,” in KLNM 11.

THE CUSTOM A7 two brothers, King Eysteinn and King Sigurdr, enliven their evening after drinking bad ale by comparing themselves to each other: Now in the evening, when the men began to drink, the ale was not good, and not much was said. Then King Eystein said, “Everyone surely is silent here. When drinking it is preferable to have some merriment. Let us have

some cheer over our cups. That will be a better entertainment for us. Brother Sigurth, it would seem best that we two have some entertaining chat between us.” (Hollander, Heimskringla, 702)

In response to his brother’s glum unwillingness, Eysteinn insists: “It has often been the custom for men when drinking to choose someone to compare themselves with. Let us do so now” (702). Thus the custom of boasting

and drinking in the evening is once again affirmed. The habit of beer drinking around evening fire is witnessed by such sayings as “vid eld skal ol drekka; ol um eld bera; full um eld bera” [“at fire one shall drink; shall carry beer; shall be drunk”] (KLNM 2, s.v. Drikkeseder). The marvelous carbuncle that illuminates the chambers in Constantinople may lack the warmth of a Scandinavian hearth, but the French warriors also pass their time, I maintain, by filling the evening with “entertaining chat”: Li carbuncles art bien, que poét hum veir Cume en mai en estet, quant soleil esclarcist. Des ore gabberunt li cunte e li marchis Franceis furent as cambres, si unt betiz des vins. (Voyage, 442-47)

Once Eysteinn convinces his brother to participate in the match, they compare their accomplishments from youth onwards: wrestling, swimming, archery, appearance, glibness, and finally military exploits abroad (namely in the Holy Land) versus maintenance of the homeland. Among these iprottir, these accomplishments, Eysteinn professes that a commander of men must be tall so that he might “easily be seen and recognized when men are gathered” (Hollander, 703), echoing Charles’s own gab at the be-

ginning of the Voyage, which sets in motion the narrative action of that | poem. It is also coincidental that Sigurdr (d. 1130) conducted an expedition

to Jerusalem and returned with a relic, a splinter from the Holy Cross. (Magnitisona saga, ch. 11). But here the coincidences end, for the boasts of Sigurodr and Eysteinn concern past deeds rather than vows engaging the future. Although each contestant comments, as it were, on the preceding

48 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE boast, no third party, like the escut, passes judgment on them. Finally, their

debate leads to no consequences other than anger, apparently temporary or at least controlled, between them: (Thereafter they both ceased talking, and both were furious. Several things occurred in their dealings between them when one could see that each put himself and his claims forward, and that each wanted to be foremost; yet peace was maintained between the two while they lived.] (Hollander, Hezmskringla, 704)

Before leaving this type of flyting called mannjafnadr (ct. Clover), we must pause at one of Eysteinn’s boasts: Eysteinn konungr svarar: “Ekki em ek bogsterkr sem pt, en minna mun skilja beinskeyti okkra, ok miklu kann ek betr 4 skidum en pu, ok haf6i pat verit enn fyrr kellud g66d iprott.” [King Eystein answered, “I am not as strong at the bow as you are; but there is less difference between our marksmanship. And I am better at the use of skis than you, and that has also been considered a worthwhile accomplishment.” | (Hollander, Heimskringla, 703)

The last word iprott ‘accomplishment’ warrants our close attention, for it is this word that the Norse translators of the Voyage who produced the Jérsalaferd often chose to render Old French gab. ‘Thus Roland’s gab is introduced: ba tok Rollant at segja sina iprott.° [Then Roland started saying his accomplishment.]

The Norse version rings false. Philologists have surmised that because gab retained its primitive meaning of insult in thirteenth-century Norse, its special sense ‘boast’ remained unrecognized and unacceptable (Aebischer, von Kraemer). However, gab does appear in the Norse translation, and not merely with the meaning ‘insult, jeer, mock’. Aebischer judges that gab was rendered iprétt in the Norse forsalaferd (VN, 40) because the special _ °° Magnussona saga, ch. 21, in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla IIT, ed. Apalbjarnarson, IF 28:260. 30 Unger edition, cited by Aebischer VN, 32.

THE CUSTOM AQ sense attached to the word in the Voyage had met some resistance (VN, 42). But gab was not universally rejected: Quant li cunte unt gabet (618)

with its intransitive verb becomes in B: En eptir petta tal er hverr peirra hafdi roett fyrir sina hénd, ok petta GEIP allt jafnsaman, pa sofnudu peir (VN, 27). [And after that conversation, which each had carried on in his own name, and after that gab, all at the same time fell asleep then.]

The same line is rendered in D: En sem Frankismenn hof6u enda gert 4 bessu GEIPI, sem nt hefir sagt verit, pa sofnudu peir (VN, 27). [And when the French had seen the end of that gab, as we have said, then they fell asleep. ]

The gab in question is Gerin’s, which contained no insult or mockery directed against Hugo, but promised a feat: throwing a heavy lance so skillfully as to knock off the topmost coin of two placed on a pillar and catching the lance before it hit the ground. The escut corroborates this judgment when he exclaims: “Par Deu!” co dist lescute, “cist gas valt .[II. des altres:

| Vers mun seignur lu rei n’i ad gens de huntage.” (616-17)

The Jorsalaferd uses gab also for Bernard’s and Bertrand’s boasts (VN, 41). The word’s problematics thicken with the translations Karlamagnus saga and Karl Magnus Kronike, in which ipott was rejected in favor of evintyr. Because segya sina iprottir had become formulaic in the flytings (see Clover,

451 N. 23), it is quite probable that the translator, or perhaps a later redactor, as Aebischer surmises (VN, 42), injected the expression into the Norse versions. Aebischer suggests that in Old Norse the seme ‘exploit’ may have satisfied the translator, but this meaning, absent in Danish dret (‘action, affair, occupation, exercise’) and in Swedish zdrott (‘physical exercise, sport’), required him to find a new term. Aebischer recognizes that the Scandinavian prétt applied to “un haut fait non imaginaire” (my emphasis), but labels as “malheureux” the change into evintyr ‘adventure, tale, story’. Yet the writer who hit upon evintyr surely grasped the crux of the matter when he realized that the gabs were indeed ‘tales’ and ‘stories’, and

50 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE furthermore that the notion of future, at least of the subjunctive, is inherent in evintyr, French ‘aventure’, which implies the modern word for future ‘avenir’. Aebischer seems to regret the connotation that the second redactor has bequeathed us: “Pour ce second remanieur, la ‘vanterie’ originelle s'est muée en une ‘bonne histoire’, une de ces histoires qu’on se raconte entre hommes, au salon, entre deux whiskies, aprés un diner copieusement arrosé” (VN, 42). Surely the redactor’s neatly drawn characterization is precisely what Charles and the Peers are doing. ‘Vanterie’, like ‘boast’, can point in either direction: to the past, as in the flytings and the mannjafnaor, or to the future, as in the heitstrengingar, the evintyr, and indeed the gabs. The gab is a boast whose speaker imagines a future adventure based on abilities acquired in the past, like the zprottir, which, it may be noted, the flyting contestants were often called upon to perform (Clover, 451 n. 23). By its projection into the future, the gab, uttered in amusement, after dinner, between two draughts of wine, is a jovial version of a vow. Von Kraemer, in an argument heavily imprinted with positivism, rejects the notion that gab(er) might reflect the heitstrenging custom, arguing that no Norse text harbors any trace of the words gabb or gabba associated with the heitstrengingar. But need we any further proof of the fluid terminology applied to boasting? Clover complains justifiably that “scholarly discussions of the Norse material have been particularly unsatisfactory [precisely because they are] narrowly historical and lexical in their orientation” (444). Her perspicacious articulation of a flyting morphology proves beyond a

doubt that this “obvious category” had a form. Von Kraemer, like the Anglo-Saxonists and Scandinavianists Clover takes to task, is guilty of paying “excessive respect .. . to inherited native terminology” (444). From the start the terms were fluid. Flyting, senna, mannjafnaor, nid, heitstrenging, gabb, iprott, and evintyr exemplify overlapping semantic fields and represent

social phenomena of varying degrees of complexity. “Tout mot désigne moins un concept qu’un moment d’une réflexion sur ce concept”, argues Paul Zumthor in his essay on etymology.*! And Michael Riffaterre supports this argument: “Words do not signify in isolation; only their groupings can eliminate the multitude of dictionary meanings.”*? The word gab, I stress,

casts a broad semantic net. Once a word is uttered, Zumthor observes, it acquires an objectivity and enters collective tradition. Uprooted tempo-

rarily, it may attract new thought: “La pensée personnelle dont il fut l’expression peut alors, pour ainsi dire, se retirer de lui; le mot reste comme un moule virtuellement vide, qu’une autre pensée, semblable ou différente, viendra remplir” (Zumthor, 145). And should the custom of heitstrenging, 31 Zumthor, Langue, texte, énigme, 145.

3? Riffaterre, “The Unshackling of Theory,” 87.

THE CUSTOM 51 or flyting, say, be transmitted to another language, the word designating the “thing” may change. Thus Rajna a century ago commented on the problem of referentiality in regard to the gabs in Italian: “I nostri antichi li [i gabs] chiamavano Vanti; e nessuno penserebbe per cid a una provenienza latina della cosa.”?? ‘The gab custom is probably of Scandinavian or-

igin and could have been propagated in Normandy by the Vikings. And since gab(er) also came to Normandy with the Northmen, von Kraemer surmises, “on serait tenté de voir dans ces termes d’emprunt norrois une désignation de la coutume des /ezt-strengings.” But he declines to ratify the hypothesis: “Une telle hypothése sera dénuée de fondements, tant qu’on

ne trouvera pas de traces relatives a l’emploi des terms norrois gabb ou gabba au sujet de de la coutume des heit-strengings” (81). Once we review the strong traditions attached to the Vikings, and the semantic capacity of words, in particular of gab, we can give greater weight to the hypothesis that von Kraemer so quickly dismisses. I reiterate, however, that pinpointing origins is not the primary goal of this argument. The universal practices of boasting, drinking, amusement, and games have been subject to innumerable investigations. Labov, Gouldner, and others have followed Huizinga’s lead by demonstrating that play is a crux of social behavior.** Nothing prevents one from arguing that the custom of boasting in the particular form it acquired in the Voyage stemmed from another culture. We have seen that ‘Tom Peete Cross linked the gabs’ substance to Celtic literature. In the same breath he urged that “anybody who imagines that the habit of boasting is peculiarly characteristic of early Germanic poetry should read the epic and romantic literature of Ireland.” He supports his challenge by referring to The Cattle-Raid of Cooley: “The central epic begins with the boast of the Connacht ambassadors that they will take the Bull of Cualnge by force” (Cross, 349 n. 3). Let us follow his recommendation by reading the episode he has in mind:

They [the Connacht ambassadors] were given the best of good food and kept supplied with the festive fare until they grew drunk and noisy. Two of the [ten] messengers were talking. One of them said: “There’s no doubt, the man of the house here is a good man.” “A good man certainly,” the other said. “Is there a better man in Ulster?” the first messenger said. 33 Pio Rajna, Le Origini delle Epopea francese, 406 n. 2. 34 William Labov, “Rules for Ritual Insults,” in Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Eth-

nography of Communication, ed. John J. Gumperz and Dell Hymes (New York, 1972), 133-60; Alvin Gouldner, Enter Plato: Classical Greece and the Origins of Social Theory (New York, 1965).

52 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE “There is, certainly,” the second messenger said. “His leader Conchobor is a better man. If the whole of Ulster gave in to him, it would be no shame for them. Anyway, it was good of him to give us the [bull] Donn Cuailnge.

It would have taken four strong provinces of Ireland to carry it off from Ulster otherwise.” A third man joined the talk. “What are you arguing about?” he said. [The author repeats verbatim the preceding remarks. | “I'd as soon see the mouth that said that spout blood! We would have taken it anyway, with or without his leave.”*

As they speak, the host’s servants enter and overhear their boasts. The negotiations for a peaceful loan of the bull are now jeopardized, for the listeners interpret the last boast (“We would have taken it anyway, with or without his leave”) as an insult. Like Hugo’s escut, they report immediately

to their chief, with the result that war breaks out between Connacht and Ulster. However, even if one were to argue that this off-the-cuff remark is in some way equivalent to the organized, stylized gab-session, a serious textual problem undermines Cross’s comparison. The text containing the passage is a twelfth-century “elucidation” added on to the much older version (sixth- to eighth-century).*° The Norsemen had established settlements and customs in Ireland from the ninth century onward, and indeed, by the twelfth century one could posit a French influence on the text Cross relies on.*’

But in fairness to Cross’s urging, let us push on to other early examples in our effort to discover boasting customs that justify Charles’s excuse for the gabs in Constantinople. M. A. O’Brien attributes the Fled Bricrenn, or Bricriu’s Feast, to an eighth-century redactor (Dillon, 69), and its beginning offers enough similarities to the Voyage to delight a seeker of Celtic sources. Bricriu, in preparing a feast for Conchubar, builds a magnificent hall for

the occasion: “Yet it surpassed the buildings of that period entirely for material and for artistic design, for beauty of architecture—its pillars and frontings splendid and costly, its carving and lintel-work famed for magnificence.”?* Walls looming thirty feet upwards were faced with bronze overlaid in gold. A high seat (curiously like the Norse high seat discussed

35 The Tain, trans. Thomas Kinsella, 56-57. 36 “Tain Bo Cuailnge,” in Irish Sagas, ed. Myles Dillon, 94ff. 37 For instances of the Norse presence in Ireland as early as 845, see Peter G. Foote and David M. Wilson, The Viking Achievement, 110, 115, 144, 217-18. 38 led Bricend (The Feast of Briciu), ed. George Henderson, 4.

THE CUSTOM 53 by Grénbech, 2:192) for Conchubar “was set with carbuncles and other precious stones which shone with a lustre of gold and silver, radiant with every hue, making the night like unto the day. Around it were placed the twelve couches of the twelve heroes of Ulster” (Henderson, 5). (Cf. Voyage, ll. 421-29.) Bricriu sows the seeds of discord by bragging in the face of the

three heroes that each deserves the Champion’s Portion, a mischievous behavior that pits one against the other. His words are flattery, not boasting or vowing, but he does succeed in instigating a short-lived battle between the warriors, after which, as in the case of Paul the Deacon’s Langobards,

“the feasting was then resumed; they made a circle around the fire and drank and made merry” (Henderson, 17). The custom that informs this tale is not one of boasting, but rather a contest, which could turn violent and physical, to win the Hero’s Portion. Posidonius the Stoic, an extensive traveler, identified the practice as early as 51 B.c.: There was a custom at Celtic feasts in ancient times, that when the joints were set before the guests the bravest man would take the thigh. If anyone else laid claim to it, then the two rose up to fight till one of them was slain. And other men in the gathering, having received some silver or gold coins, or even a certain number of jars of wine, having taken pledges that the gifts promised would really be given and having distributed them among their friends and relations, would lie down on boards, face upwards, and allow

some bystander to cut their throats with a sword (Cited by O’Brien in Dillon, 78).

In the Old Irish Scéla Mucce Meic Da Tho (The Story of Mac Da Thos Pig), two bands of warriors are set up for a slanging match by the pig owner named in the title, and their exchange of insults fills almost half the nar-

rative. If the custom of the Champion’s Portion also animates this tale, verbal combat stands in for violent conflict, although the threat of bloodshed materializes into reality at the end of their session. But let us examine

a typical boast. As Cet ma Matach bends down to divide the pig, he launches a challenge:

“Fagabar tra,” ar se, “do feraib hErend tairismi comrama frim-sa no lécud nam-mucci do raind dam.” Ros-l4 i socht na h-Ulto. “Atchi, a Loegaire,” or Conchobar. “Ni ba fir,” ar Loegaire, “Cét do raind na mucce ar ar m-belaib-ni.” “An bic, a Loegaire, co rot-acilliur,” ar Cet. “Is bés dtib-si in far n-Ultaib,” ar Cet, “cech mac

gaibes gaisced acaib is cucain-ni cend a baire. Dochual[ildaisiu dano isin | cocrich. Imma-tarraid din inti; foracbais in roth ocus in carpat ocus

54 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE na heocho. Atrullais fein ocus gai triut. Nis-toirchi in muicc f6n innasin.” Dessid side dano.*?

[“Let someone be found now among the men of Ireland,” said he, “to endure battle with me, or leave me the pig to divide.” Silence fell upon the men of Ulster. “You see that, Loegaire!” said Conchobar. “It is intolerable,” said Loegaire, “for Cet to divide up the pig before our faces.”

“Stop a bit, Loegaire, that I may speak to you,” said Cet. “You have a custom among you in Ulster,” said Cet, “that every youth among you on receiving arms makes us his objective. Now you came into the borderland, and we encountered there. You left behind the wheel and the chariot and the horses. You yourself made off with a spear through you. You will not get the pig in that way.” Thereupon the other sat down.] Five similar exchanges ensue, each including the following elements: (1) A

hero rises to face Cet. (2) Each new challenge is issued in a refrain-like expression, such as “Ni ba fir Cet do raind na mucce ar ar m-belaib-ni” (“It is intolerable for Cet to divide up the pig before our faces”). (3) Cet relates some embarrassing incident from the challenger’s past. (4) A second refrain signals the challenger’s defeat, such as “Dessid side dano” (Thereupon the other sat down). Although the episode recalls the flyting between Beowulf and Unferd, an essential difference distinguishes these boasts from the gabs: they carry _ no engagement in regard to the future but are directed instead toward the past, the reputation of the adversary. Indeed, the challengers’ “boasts” are

silent. They merely stand up to face Cet, who then destroys the other’s reputation with words. Not one hint of creative imagination is implied here of the kind that inspired the Swedish redactor to translate gab into evintyr,

but rather Cet’s responses are considered as “true” history. Nor would a Norse translator be tempted to fall back on #prottir as an equivalent for these demeaning revelations, for ibrottir are feats, accomplishments, exploits, to which the boaster “points with pride.” No representative, furthermore, stands in for the contenders, as in Beowulf or the Voyage, but each character speaks (or remains silent) for himself. But so do the Jémsvikings at Sveinn’s funeral feast. If one were to draw up a balance sheet, one could

stress the quantitative importance of the verbal confrontation in the Scéla Mucce meic Da Tho by paralleling it to the high proportion of text devoted

3° The text is edited and translated in An Early Irish Reader by N. Kershaw Chadwick. The passage is on 11; the translation is on 19.

THE CUSTOM 55 to the gabs in the Voyage. On the other side of the ledger would fall, however, the qualitative components: guests in a foreign land bearing incipient hostility toward their host, and the host verifying the guests’ intentions, but above all the immediate purpose of the boasting: to pass the time, after evening meal with alcoholic beverages consumed, all followed by sleep until the morning after when actions must match words. The ledger seems to show a heavy debit to the Germanic tradition, yet Celtic scholars insist that if we look at the Voyage de Charlemagne carefully, we will discern a network of indebtedness to the lore that later left its mark on Arthurian tales.

Laura Hibbard Loomis, in an oft-cited article, argued that the realm of

Hugo of Constantinople was a “land of summer” where eternal youth thrived, and she was persuaded that its origins lay in Celtic conceptions of the Otherworld, especially since that tradition often identified the Other-

world as Constantinople, Greece, or Byzantium. She scolded Gaston Paris and Henri Coulet for their naive reliance on the wonders of Constantinople described by eye-witness travelers (333) to explain the descriptions in the Voyage. She quoted (337) from Howard R. Patch’s famous study

of the medieval concept of the Otherworld: “For people in the story, the land is hard to enter, and sometimes difficult to leave.”*! Yet Charles and his followers encountered no obstacles in entering the city. In fact, as historians remind us, it was almost impossible to travel by land to Jerusalem without passing through Constantinople. Indeed we must pause to wonder how Charles was able to avoid the city, astride all land routes, on his approach to the Holy Land. What of the crowds of youths enjoying themselves at chess, which Loomis associated with eternal youth? We read in the Voyage:

Vint mile chevalers i troverent seant, E sunt vestut de pailes et de heremins blancs, As eschés et as tables se vunt esbaneant. (Il. 267-70)

How similar they are to the 15,000 young knights enjoying themselves in the summery land of Spain in August, 778! Sur palies blancs siedent cil cevaler, As tables juent pur els esbaneier * Loomis, “Some Observations on the Pélerinage de Charlemagne.” +! Patch, “Medieval Descriptions of the Otherworld,” 605.

56 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE E as eschecs li plus saive e li veill, E escremissent cil bacheler leger. (Roland, \l. 110-13)

And the emperor is seated on his remarkable faldestoed wrought in pure gold (1. 115).

Laura Loomis was also convinced that Hugo’s palace was of Celtic origin, even though she admitted that “a whirling round house” occurred in other literatures, notably in Russian folk tales (337 and n. 1). More recently Lucie Polak persuasively countered that the palace was modeled on the horizontal windmills of Persia and is reminiscent of “the throne or palace of Chosroes II, the Persian king defeated by Heraclius in the seventh century.”” Although it seems probable that Hugo’s palace was circular, the poet nowhere specifies this trait. It does indeed turn in the wind “Cumme roé de char qui a tere decent” (1. 357), but it also rises off the ground on a

stout pillar, just as Norwegian houses (stabbur) were erected high on wooden pillars, apparently to allow exit during periods of deep snow.*

The historical witnesses of Constantinople, whom Laura Loomis scoffed at, deserve another day in court, especially Liudprand, cited by Gaston Paris.** This bishop of Cremona, who visited Constantinople in 949, just after the death of King Hugh in Provence, was impressed by a tree made of bronze, coated with gold, whose branches were filled with birds composed of the same metals and ingeniously contrived to chirp

according to their species. Beside this tree, which stood in front of a throne, sat two gilded lions, robots that slapped their tails, opened their jaws, and wagged their tongues. When Liudprand approached the throne, it rose upward like an elevator. One can imagine that his anxiety resembled that of Charles and the Peers when Hugo’s palace began to revolve. Liudprand in fact describes a high palace named “Decanneacubita,” the house of nineteen couches. There, at Christmas, the emperor dined. He and his guests were served in golden vessels, some so heavy that they were rolled

on carts, or hung from the ceiling and swung from couch to couch by means of a pulley attached above. ‘The bishop also told of an acrobatic act in which a man balanced on his head a long pole, over 24 feet in length. Two boys shimmied up the pole, performed tricks, and slid down head first.

All the while the man kept the pole as steady as if it were a tree rooted * Polak, “Charlemagne and the Marvels of Constantinople,” 165. * See Hollander’s note in his translation of the Jémsvikinga saga, go n. 46. 4 Paris, “Chanson,” 12. 45 See The Works of Liudprand of Cremona, trans. Frederick Adam Wright (London, 1930), 206-12. Pertinent passages are included in Robert Brentano, ed., The Early Middle Ages, 500-1000 (New York, 1964), 285-90.

THE CUSTOM 57 solidly in the ground. Finally, the emperor displayed his wealth ostentatiously, and demonstrated his largesse each Palm Sunday by a generous distribution of gold coins. Lacking in these reports is any mention of a ploughman king like the famous Welsh Hu Gadarn, who is proposed by Celtic scholars as the model for Hugues le Fort, emperor of Constantinople in the Voyage. The argument has weight, since Hu Gadarn in Welsh means “the warrior” or “the

strong one.”* Others have suggested, though, that the name is a hybrid composed of the name of Hugh Capet, Hugh the Great, and the epithet of Robert the Strong. All men bearing these names were Robertinians and rivals of the Carolingians, whom they replaced in the tenth century.*’ Should one worry about the chronology and the proper assignment of names? Probably not.** But if the name of Hugues le Fort results from an anthroponymic confusion, his habit of ploughing would indeed seem to reflect the vocation of Hu Gadarn, portrayed as an emperor, “constable of the gold of Constantinople,” and duty-bound to cultivate the wheat fields (Rejhon, “Hu Gadarn,” 202). The text of the Voyage describes just such a pastoral emperor (Il. 283-97), so skillful at his pursuit that his furrows are as straight as taut strings (I. 297). But this candidate for Hugo’s identity drawn from Celtic lore faces a competitor from history. Charlemagne’s father, Pepin, the mayor of the palace, served under King Childeric before he replaced him on the throne. Childeric, Einhard reports, left his house in the guise of a farmer in a cart drawn by oxen: “Quocumque eundum erat, carpento ibat, quod bubus junctis et bubulco rustico more agente trahebatur.”” Little else of Childeric reminds us of the opulent Hugo of Constantinople, except that he was indeed rival to a Carolingian (Halphen, ro). Thus in Einhard’s account is sketched an opposition between a rustic king and a vigorous leader whose destiny led to imperial conquests. While the antagonism between Charles and Hugo may have had a germ in history,

46 See Annalee C. Rejhon, “Hu Gadarn: Folklore and Fabrication,” 209-10. 47 See Andrew W. Lewis, “Capetian Family Origins,” and Patrick Geary, “Carolingians and the Carolingian Empire.” 48 A glance at another fictionalization of history will recall the liberty (or confusion) of which medieval poets were capable: In the thirteenth century foufroi de Poitiers, the eponymous hero is modeled on Guillaume de Poitiers, grandfather of Aliénor, who in the romance becomes his mother. In the romance her husband is Richard, whose name echoes the historical Aliénor’s son, Richard Lion-Heart. These fictionalized parents send their son Joufroi to England so that he can be dubbed by King Henry, whose historical prototype could have been the son (Henry JD) of a Joufroi (Geoffrey Plantagenet), or the father (Henry II) of a Joufroi (Geoffrey of Bretagne). See Joufroi de Poitiers, ed. Percival B. Fay and John L. Grigsby. Eginhard, Vie de Charlemagne, ed. and trans. Louis Halphen, ro.

58 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE as well as in Celtic legend, it is difficult to find a model for a ploughman king in Scandinavia. Russom’s investigation of the Gifts of Men shows that the Norse concept of nobility “rigorously excluded from all lists of talents ... all skills involving mercantile or agrarian life” (13). However, Roger of Wendover in his Flores Historiarum records for the year 876 the Vikings’ requirement that the territory they conquered must be cultivated either by their own men or by the natives. It is not impossible that these historical elements had been fused into a fictional king obliged to plough his own land (as Childeric’s semblance of humility appeared to demonstrate), and an adversary to be ousted by a foreign chieftain, who himself would never dream of tilling the soil. Another argument proffered by Celticists centers on Louis Michel’s thesis that Jean d’Outremeuse in his fourteenth-century Myreur des Histors relied on a Celtic source, theoretically a lost version of the Voyage de Charlemagne, in which the name of the ploughman king, Hu Gadarn, had not been translated into French. Jean’s text contains the following curious passage: “Item, sur l’an VIII et XVIII en mois d’apvril alat le roy Charlez en Jherusalem pour acomplir son vowe qu'il avoit voweit... . Et retournat adoncques a Cyppre quant ilz vowont les voires gas par solas dont ilz furent pres mal mys... . Et la fut engenreiz de [Olivier] de Viane en la fille le roy Gadars, Galiens le restauroit.”*! Like modern critics, Jean remembered of all the gabs the boast made by Olivier. Yet at the same time Jean seized on the essence of the boasting session, i.e., that the French “vowed the true gabs” for amusement (“par solas”), and afterwards suffered the consequences (“dont ilz furent pres mal mys”). Enough precise information in this brief summary indicates that Jean’s source was reliable. But could it have been a Welsh text such as the translations of the Voyage in the Red Book of Hergest or in the Hengwrt manuscripts?” Since Jean was very likely

ignorant of the Welsh language, his text would have had to be based on a French, or Latin, version of an originally Celtic tale in which the name Hu Gadarn remained untranslated. So goes the argument. Two philological problems arise, however. Without the prefix 4u-, the voiced initial consonant in gadarn is normally surd: cadarn.*? Why would the remanieur of the lost poem have omitted the familiar Hu, so often rendered “Hugues,” or “Hugh?”>* By this reasoning, Jean’s text should read: “li roys Cadars,” °° P. H. Sawyer, Kings and Vikings, 105. 1 Louis Michel, Les légendes épiques carolingiennes dans l’oeuvre de fean d’Outremeuse, 18.

2 For a discussion of these texts see chapter 5, “Latencies.” 3 A. C. Rejhon, “The French Reception of a Celtic Motif.” *4 See Rejhon, “Hu Gadarn,” 211 n. 37, for references.

THE CUSTOM 59 thereby retaining the nominative endings in all three forms. However, the case system had long been a vague memory by then, so the aberration is to be expected. The second obstacle concerns the pronunciation of the Welsh prefix bu, where u is pronounced as a schwa, not as the palatal French a, or [y]. If the name was transmitted orally the point is crucial, but if it was handed down through writing, a certain liberty is admissible. A further obstacle faces the Celticist, that of the geographical spread of the legend of the gabs both into and out of the British Isles. The solution offered to support circulation in England is the presence of a version of Charlemagne’s journey (but not of the gabs) in Scandinavia, attested in the First Branch of the Karlamagniis saga.°° It is reasoned that if the legend had

reached that far north, it had surely circulated in England or Wales. If indeed the saga harbors evidence of very early versions of both the Voyage and the Roland, it is logical to search Scandinavia for traces of Jean’s King Gadars. As early as the ninth century, chieftains in Viking Scandinavia were called godar, a title that designated a powerful commander.* The rank ap-

plies to Icelandic society, and it was in Icelandic that Snorri Sturluson preserved the treasures of Norwegian legend in the monumental Hezmskringla, but the word also occurs in Swedish place names. Furthermore, the problem of transmission of Norse customs to France diminishes when we remember that Charles, in the Voyage, identifies Chartres as a particular city in which the custom of the gab was practiced (1. 654). After the Vikings became Norman, Chartres developed into a major breeding ground of their culture, especially for music, and perhaps for the propagation of travel and

pilgrimage literature.*’ It follows that a Norse tradition might have also inspired the addition of Magnus to Charles’s good name, a key event in the Voyage, since it had become a favorite among the Vikings by the eleventh century.°**

55 Rejhon “French Reception.” Branch VII of the saga contains a translation of the Voyage with the gabs.

56 See Sawyer, Kings and Vikings, 58-59. Philologists may justifiably object that the intervocalic 6 (eth) would normally fall if the word passed into French, just as the consonant disappeared in, say, wadjan = gaagnier. But one could posit for gadars the Germanic (rather than Norse) etymon warda, which resulted in French garde, and add the Germanic suffix -art (as in Richard, vieillard) to yield gardart or “gadars” with the sporadic but common dissimilation of r. The phonetic problems are admittedly thorny, but so also is the vocalized initial in Gadars for cadarn. 57 See Bernard Leblond, L’Accession des Normands de Neustrie a la culture occidentale (X°—XT° siecles), 45.

58 ’The name became popular because of St. Olaf’s son, Magnus the Good, although the Norse chroniclers had originally associated the honorific suffix with Charles. ‘The link between Scandinavian custom and the mentality of the poet of the Voyage de Charlemagne appears solid. See Foote and Wilson, The Viking Achievement, 115.

60 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Celtic scholars are wont to associate the rivalry between Charles and his empress with Guenevere’s unfaithfulness in Arthurian legend. True, the fusion of the Voyage and Arthurian legend did occur, but not until much

later, in the sixteenth- century ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall (examined below in the Conclusion). Gaston Paris linked the marital dispute to analogues in Oriental literature (“Chanson,” 8), but history, by way of Einhard, also uncovers the seeds of a dispute between Charles and his spouse. [he biographer mentions nine women who were Charles’s mates. The emperor married Hildegard, Fastrada, and Liutgard; he took as concubines Madelgard, Gerswinda, Regina, and Adelind, and some manuscripts add a fifth, unnamed, concubine. Charles’s mother requested him to marry a daughter of the Lombard king, Desiderius, but for reasons unknown to the chronicler, Charles repudiated this woman after one year of cohabitation (Halphen, 54). That one of these women might have felt animosity towards Charles is understandable. In fact, the important uprising against Charles in Germania was blamed on Queen Fastrada (Halphen, 64). These annals, then, provide ample material for a tale of a husbandand-wife quarrel. But the image of Charles the imbiber in the Voyage is a far cry from the

portrait Einhard sketched of his leader, who, he claimed, was not only a temperate eater and drinker, but deplored drunkenness among his associates: “In cibo et potu temperans, sed in potu temperantior, quippe qui ebrietatem in qualicumque homine, nedum in se ac suis, plurimum abominabatur (Halphen, 70). Despite this portrait, the picture of Charles tippling and boasting became etched in French tradition after the Voyage. In Fierabras, he is depicted swearing that he will neither eat nor drink until one of the peers has taken on his enemy: Le baron Saint Denis en a forment juré K’il ne mangera mais ne buvra de claré, S’aura ensanble o lui .I. de ses pers jousté.*

More bluntly, Roland accuses the emperor of outright intoxication and of insulting boasts: Puis te vantas le soir, quant tu fus enivrés, Que li viel chevalier c’avoies amené Lavoient moult miex fait que li joune® d’assés; Assés en fui le soir laidis et ranponés. (Fierabras, 6) °° Fierabras, ed. A. Kroeber and G. Servois, 5. 6° E'dn.: joule.

THE CUSTOM 61 The contrast between the ninth-century portrait and the one imposed in French poetry leads to the defensible conjecture that the Nordic custom was introduced along with the portrait of a typical Viking leader. When the Scandinavian invaders of Kiev were obliged to choose Islam or Christianity as their faith, Prince Vladimir the Rus (Rus was the term for Scandinavian) preferred Christianity because the other faith required abstinence. He is alleged to have declared: “Drink is the joy of the Rus. We cannot exist without that pleasure.”®! The historical Charles, according to Einhard, was known for his height,

measuring over seven feet tall (Halphen, 66), and had trouble with his women, but he was not given to heavy drinking or, apparently, to immoderate boasting. But he was a German; more precisely, a Frank. The pastime that the fictional Charles mentions in the Voyage was probably also Germanic. The problem persists, however, as to whether any culture can be singled out as the context for a custom so widespread as boasting after a copious meal washed down with wine or beer. Emphasizing the universality of the

gab custom, Fechner refuses to answer the question of cultural context: “Ohne diese Frage detailliert zu beantworten, lasst sich hier bereits sagen, dass die Sitte des gabar nicht genetisch erklart zu werden braucht, da es sich um ein in aller Welt auftretendes kulturhistorisches Phanomen handelt, das sich bei den verschiedensten Volkern auf einer bestimmten sozialen und kulturellen Entwicklungsstufe nachweisen lasst” (19). I have attempted to sketch the stages of development of the custom, and I remain tempted by the conjuncture of similarities and circumstances (gab’s etymology and Scandinavian behavior) to believe that a Norse context lies behind Charles’s remark. The persistent argument in favor of the gab’s universality is suggested by Fechner when he adduces Schiicking’s list of boast discourse (“Phrahlreden”) in the I/iad and the Aeneid as well as his own gleanings in the Old Testament.” Once again these cursory citations merit a pause to determine

how much support each brings to the argument. I propose to contest the validity of these examples in hopes of confirming a definitive link of the gab to Germanic culture.

6! This famous quotation appears blazoned across a colorful illustration in National Geographic 167:3 (March 1985): 285. See also Vladimir Volkoff, Vladimir, the Russian Viking, 166. Coincidentally, Oleg of Novgorod attacked the Byzantine navy in Constantinople’s Golden Horn sometime in the ninth century, probably in 860 (Sawyer, 21,

28, 117).

62 echner (19) includes Huizinga’s broad but superficial survey of boasting found in

Homo Ludens.

62 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Fechner states that If Moses 7:16-17 (Exodus) exemplifies boasting. God orders Moses to go before Pharaoh with the words: “Let my people go... [hus saith the Lord: ‘In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord: behold I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood’ ” (King James version). Jehovah of course makes good his threat, but God can hardly be considered to be boasting! Fechner also cites Goliath’s challenge to the armies of Israel: “Give me a man that we may fight together” (I Samuel 17:10). Fechner’s third biblical allusion (II Kings 19:16) concerns Hezekiah’s prayer in which he complains about Sennacherib’s God-defying boast: “Lord, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, Lord, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of

Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God.” These passages have in common an impending armed conflict between two peoples, but otherwise they seem far removed from the boasting we have been scrutinizing, and certainly from the gabs of Constantinople. Fechner overlooked, however, a striking biblical situation that bears on his argument. If one casts an objective glance at the Last Supper, similarities to the gab-session appear. The disciples and their leader, after wine and meat, become concerned that a spy is in their midst. Luke 22:24 reports

that a competition then arose: “And there was also strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest.” The consequences of this after-dinner contest will be earth-shaking, but of course there is no hint of mirth among the participants.® Schiicking’s allusion to the I/iad (XXI, |. 108) focuses on a brief sentence amidst Achilles’s insults of Lycaon, whom he has just slain: “You see, don’t you, how large I am and how well made?” Perhaps we can admit as a boast Hector’s words to his wife in which he conjectures what fate will befall her after his death: And seeing you in tears, a man may say: “There is the wife of Hektor, who fought best of Irojan horsemen when they fought at Troy.”

(VI, ll. 460-62) And in his third reference to the I/ad Schticking again alludes to Hector’s words: 6 See also Martin Gosman, “La propagande politique.” Gosman believes that Charles was viewed as the Messiah; thus the Jew recognizes him as such. But this inter-

pretation, I believe, fails to account for the hurried, comic behavior of the dazzled convert to Christianity. A more serious and deliberate conversion is exemplified by Bramimonde in the Oxford Chanson de Roland. 6¢ Homer, The Ihad, trans. Robert Fitzgerald.

THE CUSTOM 63 But his dead body [ll restore to your encampment by the well-trimmed ships. Akhaians there may give him funeral and heap a mound for him by Helle’s water. One day a man on shipboard, sailing by on the winedark sea, will point landward and say: “There is a death-mound of an ancient man, a hero who fought Hektor and was slain.” Someone will say that someday. And the honor won by me here will never pass away. (VII, ll. 86-95)

Thus Hector’s pride appears in the conjectures he makes about the immortality of his prowess. So also Aeneid I, ll. 378-79, in which Aeneas declares to Venus that “his fame is known in Heaven.” In his greeting to Pallas, Aeneas mentions in passing his “virtus” (VIII, |. 131). The final passage proposed by Schiicking spotlights ‘Turnus: Turnus ego, haud ulli veterum virtute secundus, devovi. “Solum Aeneas vocat”:et vocet oro.® [I, Turnus, second in valor to none of my forefathers, have made my vow.

“Aeneas calls me forth alone?” Well, let him! I beseech him to challenge me!]°

Granted that these speeches represent Prahireden, they are either ephemeral or point to socio-religious phenomena far removed from the custom I am seeking to delineate. Boasting is indeed a universal phenomenon, but its purposes and contexts can be identified. Rules, form, contingency, and consequence can flow artistically, but vaguely, into the narrative with none of the crisis atmosphere attendant to the gabs, heitstrengingar,

flyting, and so on. Indeed it might be argued that all discourse is some form of Prablreden because human speech, in all its various garbs, can be

tied to the furtherance of ego, or at least to the preservation of self, but this is not my claim here. I maintain that the gab reflects an identifiable form and content grounded in a warrior society, and further that to dispense with its historical context, as Fechner argues, fails to do justice to its particular manifestation in the Middle Ages. 6° Virgil, The Aeneid, ed. T. E. Page, XI, I. 441-42. 66 My translation.

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3

The Genre

Is THE GAB A LITERARY GENRE? Jauss has recognized it as “une structure de

genre,” while Fechner notes that Appel, Panzer, Roncaglia, Kohler, Vossler, and Spanke have used it to refer to thematic characteristics of Old Occitan lyric poetry.! Rychner has shown that the gab section of the Voyage manifests

lyric qualities in the form of /aisses paralleles, while the rest of the poem lacks a strong strophic imprint: “II n’y a pas de structure a proprement parler, mais un récit qui coule.”? What happens when the gabs are analyzed as poetic constructs? Without delving too deeply into theoretical underpinnings, for the moment, I will apply to the gabs the criteria conventionally

associated with poetry: (a) repetition (of organization or structure; of sounds, words, lines, expressions—the refrain effect; of syntax); (b) striking

imagery, metaphors, rhetoric; (c) the lyrical je, the individuality of the subject. With one exception each gab fills the laisse, so that the gab tends to take on a strophic autonomy. The length varies from sixteen lines (Charles and

Gerin) to nine (Naimes). The series of thirteen gabs is balanced symmetrically: the two longest begin and end the session, while the shortest falls at midpoint. Each gab opens with a one- or two-line introduction, usually an invitation to participate, and closes with a comment by the escut. ‘These openings and closings correspond to Rychner’s vers d’intonation (71) and vers de conclusion (73), except that the form, especially of the invitation, is

' Hans-Robert Jauss, “Littérature médiévale et théorie des genres”; Jorg-Ulrich Fechner, “Zum Gap in der Altprovenzalischen Lyrik,” 20. ? Jean Rychner, La Chanson de geste. Essai sur Part épique des jongleurs, 115.

65

66 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE more predictable than one might expect from the conventions of the genre. Horrent recognizes the formal ingredient, but he underestimates its lyrical variability: “La formule introductive devient un peu stéréotypée, la variété n’étant assurée que par I’interversion des termes.”* Variety stems not only from inversion, but from other elements: Guillaume d’Orange’s impulsive

intervention that is not preceded by the emperor’s request to speak, Charles’s self-introduction, Bertrand’s invitation to his uncle, and a mixture

of moods and tenses—imperatives, interrogatives and futures. (Cromie also underestimates the lyric variety of the scene by stressing only the temporal modulations of the verb gaber.*) Most knights accept the invitation to boast with a formulaic volenters (ll. 470, 485, 520, 532, 541, 554, 566, 580, 592, 603; 1.e., 10 of 13), but Turpin answers simply “oil . . . par le comant Carlon” (1. 494).° Each gab is closed by the escut’s commentary, formulaically presented by the phrase “co dist l’escut” and stretching over two to four lines. The shortest but most socially outrageous gab, Oliver’s, earns the longest commentary: four lines for a boast containing only six, including two of introduction. No other gab, except Charles’s, merits more than a three-line reaction on the part of the spy. None of the examples Rychner gives of vers d’intonation or vers de con-

clusion betrays such a strict adherence to form. In the Oxford Roland, Rychner reports, a laisse may begin with (1) the mention of the hero’s name; (2) an epic inversion; or (3) the order adjective/estre/subject; and it may end with (1) commentary inserted after “Dist Oliver / l’arcesvesque / Rollant”; or (2) anticipations or presages (71-74). The strophic structure of the chanson de geste in general tends to be loose. A lyric form is adumbrated in the laisse, and its underlying function is to act as an aid in oral composition. The following table summarizes the form, length, and content of the gabs (Picherit, ed., Il. 453-616, laisses 24-36):°

An internal organization emerges that is tighter than the relations among laisses described by Rychner. The poet places the participants in a hierarchy that the audience will recognize immediately, with Charles at the beginning followed first by his three most renowned vassals, and then by the rest of the twelve peers; the boasts proceed in crescendo from Charles’s

> Jules Horrent, “Le Pélerinage de Charlemagne”: Essai d’explication littéraire, 82. * Maureen Cromie, “Le Style Formulaire dans Le Voyage de Charlemagne a férusalem et a Constantinople,” Revue des Langues romanes 77 (1967): 40-41.

> Horrent observes that because Turpin refers to Charles in the third person, the inviter must be either Roland or Olivier. “Du Voyage selon Guido Favati,” 167. 6 Unless otherwise noted, all references from the Voyage are to The fourney of Charlemagne to Ferusalem and Constantinople, ed. and trans. Jean-Louis Picherit.

THE GENRE 67 Name Intro./Boast/Comment Content

of Boaster (total lines) of Boast 1. Charles 1/11/4 (16) sword feat 2. Roland 2/11/2 (15) horn blowing 3. Olivier 2/4/4 = (10) love-making

4. Turpin 2/10/2. (14) equestrian juggling 5. Guillaume 1/7/3, (Al) wall smashing

6. Ogier 2/7/3 (12) upending the palace 7. Naimes 2/5/2 (9) shaking of hauberk 8. Beranger 2/9/2 (13) upturned pikes 9. Bernard 2/7/3 (12) flood 10. Ernalz 2/9/3 (13) vat of molten lead 11. Aimer 2/8/2. = (14) disguise

12. Bertrand 2/7/2 (11) flying 13. Gerin 1/13/2 (16) lance trick

relatively modest vow to split open a double hauberk with his sword to Gerin’s complicated lance trick, which, as the escut observes, is worth any three of the others. Although a progressive outbidding of each participant by the next may be illusory, it is certainly true that each gab is different from the others, a feature that contrasts with other oath-swearing sessions—compare, for example, the heitstrengingar in the Jomsvikinga saga. The author's effort to distinguish the essence of each gab appears even more clearly when, on closer inspection, we recognize a pattern of association based on some implement, technique, or other aspect of medieval warfare: 1) sword, 2) horn, 3) sexual violation, 4) steed/horsemanship, 5) mangonel missile, 6) physical strength, 7) hauberk, 8) pickets, 9) water (in moats), 10) molten lead, 11) disguise, 12) shields, 13) lance (as a thrown weapon).

Thus these “pilgrims” have been associated with the diverse images of battle, ranging from offensive to defensive combat, and including the violation of women. Later, the question of how appropriate each gab might be to the character who utters it will be examined, but suffice it to note for the moment that an effort by the poet to find a symmetry of content and form is apparent. Rychner has remarked on the poet’s attention to form as shown by the distribution of assonances in the laisses containing the gabs: “Pour les treize laisses des gabs, il y a dix assonances, ce qui témoigne d’un certain effort”

68 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE (go).’? Even greater attention to the poetic effort discernible in the gabs would have revealed the care the poet took to make each one distinct. In placing six of the heroes’ names at the assonance, he fittingly arranged for each of those laisses to echo the name or associated toponym: Roland, Ogier, Berengier, Aimer, Ernalt de Girunde, Guillaume d’Orenge. In this last case the assonance is introduced when Bertrand addresses his uncle: Et dist li quens Bertram: “Or gaberat mis uncles.” “Volenters, par ma fei!” dist Ernalz de Girunde. (Il. 565-66)

In this instance, the fact that the invitation is issued by one of the knights instead of by Charles is due to formal considerations.’ Over half the assonances, then, are linked to the boaster’s name. Of the eight assonances pressed into service, the poet managed to associate six with the contents. The repetition of sound in the other seven gab laisses seems to be distributed arbitrarily, although there might be symmetry in the recurrence of [o] in the laisses fourth from the beginning and fourth from the end, and of [je] in the two laisses surrounding the midpoint in [y]: 1. Charles [e] 2. Roland [a] 3. Olivier [ej] 4. Turpin [o] 5- Guillelmes d’Orenge [a] 6. Ogier [je] 7. Naimes li dus [y] 8. Berengier [je]

9. Bernard [e] ,

to. Ernalz de Girunde [o] rr. Aimer [e] 12. Bertrand [i] 13. Gerin [a]

Syntactic patterning, another aspect of the gabs’ stylization, reinforces the prosodic features. Within the tripartite structure of each laisse (introduction, boast, commentary) is nested the tripartite structure of each boast: ’ J detect only eight assonances: [e] Charles, Bernard, Aimer; [a] Roland; [ej] Olivier; [o] Turpin, Ernalz de Girunde; [a] Guillelmes d’Orenge, Gerin; [je] Ogier, Berengier; [y] Naimes li dus; [i] Bertrand. 5 "The assonance introducing Olivier, “Rolland li curteis” (484), may anticipate Olivier’s courtly gab, rather than identify Roland, who is not known for his courtliness.

THE GENRE 69 I. Hypothesis: a situation (either imagined or visible); II. Action promised;

JII. Consequences envisioned. A similar division is reflected in verbal sequences. In Turpin’s gab, for example, note subjunctives, futures, and a conditional sentence: Treis des meillurs destrers qui en sa cité sunt Prenget |i reis demain, sin facet faire un curs. La defors en cel plain, quant melz s’esleserunt, Jo i vendrai sur destre curant par tel vigur Que me serrai al terz, et si larrai les deus; Et tendrai quatre pumes mult grosses en mun puin, Sis irrai estruant et getant cuntremunt Et /errai les destrers aler a lur bandun: Se pume m’en escapet ne altre en chet del poin, Carlemaines mi sire me cret les oilz del frunt.

(Il. 495-504)

For the subjunctive, used to set up the situation, may be substituted an interrogative (“Veez cele pelote?” asks Guillaume, 1]. 508), a future clause (“Quant |’avrai en mun chef vestut,” posits Aimer, |. 583), or an imperative

(“Ireis escuz forz et roiz m’empruntez,” requests Bertrand, |. 593). The last eight gabs replace the conditional sentence with a formulaic construction based on verrez, which visualizes the performance of the boasts. Whatever the verbal sequence or the formulaic dependence, the tripartite struc-

ture of the boast tends to persist. Bernard’s crucial boast is typical. It includes

(I) the hypothesis, indicated by Bernard’s pointing to a visible object that will be affected, namely the water in the ford (1. 555), (ID the action promised, a flood (Il. 556-59), and (III) the consequence, that Hugo will be trapped (Il. 560-61). (I) Veistes la grant ewe qui si brut a cel guet? (II) Demain la ferai tute issir de sun canel, Aspandre par ces camps, que vus tuz le verrez, Tuz les celers aemplir qui sunt en la citez, La gent le rei Hugon et moillir et guaer, (III) En la plus halte tur lui maime munter: Ja n’en descendrat mais, si |’avrai comandet.” (Il. 555-61)

Thus the internal organization of the boast, echoing as it does the tripartite division of the laisse as a whole, reinforces the formal poetic qual-

70 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE ities of repetition with variation. Although these attributes naturally flow from a simple logic (beginning, middle, end), the poet has devoted special attention to this section of his narrative. That the courtly song also exhibits a tripartite structure, like the sonnet for which it paves the way, is perhaps no coincidence.’ Aside from the gab section, the laisse is subordinate to the narrative, Rychner has shown, and loses its strophic structure: “La laisse ne commande pas au récit .. . Elle n’obéit pas davantage a la structure strophique” (114). Thus a latent poetic genre seems embedded in the narrative, but there remain traditional criteria of imagery and individual appropriateness to be applied before declaring the gab to be a poem, or at least poem-like. Compared to the studied metaphors created by Victor Hugo, Guillaume Apollinaire, or even Charles d’Orléans, the imagery in the gabs is lackluster, but contrasted with boasting in Scéla Mucce Meic Da Tho or the fomsvikinga

saga, it is scintillating. Indeed, metaphors are non-existent, and in lieu of simple metonymy such as is found in Charles d’Orléans’s phrase “manteau de vent, de froidure et de pluie” one encounters epic clichés, hyperbole, and crude enumeration. To begin the gabs, Charles imagines, simplistically, that a strong opponent doubles his armor: no young man in Hugo’s court is strong enough to resist his sword even when suited in “dous haubers et dous halmes fermet” (1. 456) and seated on a fresh and rapid charger. His blow will be formidable, slashing through “les heaumes u il erent plus

chers, ... les haubercs, ... le feutre avoec la sele del destrer suyurnez” (Il. 459-61). His brand will cut into the earth so deeply that no mortal man will be able to recover it “tresqu’il seit pleine haunste de terre desteret” (I. 464). The poet, consciously or unconsciously, doubtless links the epic formulas with Charles’s prowess, evoking for the audience the memories of great battles recounted in many chansons de gestes with these very words.

The formulas are less apparent in the other gabs. Roland’s horn-blowing evokes sounds: not the musical notes of his trumpet, but rather the fierce noise of the wind he will create. ‘[wice mentioned (Il. 473, 477), its harshness will bring on pandemonium in Constantinople. As it rumbles through the city, victims will see visible proof of its ferocity as it burns off mustaches and sideburns. Oliver’s much-discussed gab offers little imagery: a stylized

portrait of Hugo’s daughter relegated to a second hemistich, “qui tant ad bloi le peil” (1. 486), accompanied by a hyperbole, “cent feiz” (1. 488). Turpin picks up Charles’s use of a number, advancing from Charles’s two to the three horses of his equestrian feat and the four apples that he will juggle. Guillaume, in the relatively meticulous description of an enor-

° Jean Frappier, La Poéste lyrique francaise aux XII et XIII siécles, 102.

THE GENRE 71 mous ball he proposes to throw, multiplies Turpin’s figures by 10. Thirty men cannot budge it (1. 510) and with it he will knock down forty armlengths (toises) of the palace wall (1. 514). Ogier’s straightforward boast requires no imagery as he merely points to the palace and promises to use his great strength. Color is introduced in Naimes’ gab: “le peil canut, hoberc brun, ... acer ne blanc ne brun” (Il. 532-36) and mimicked by the escut: “canuz, ... peil blanc” (Il. 538-39); four of these instances occur at the assonance. Add to the colors a formulaic simile, also at line’s end: “cheent les mailles ensement cum festuz” (1. 537). The brevity of Naimes’s gab, the color theme, and the single image may all stem from the difficulty of the [y] assonance. Berengier contrasts a// swords (“espees de tuz ses chevalers,” 1. 542) with mone that will touch him: “Ja ne troverez une qui m/’ait en char tuchet” (1. 549). Bernard simply points to the great body of water that he will cause to overflow its banks, but mentions its noise: “Veistes la grant ewe qui si brut a cel guet?” (1. 555). It will a// (1. 556) come out and flood ail (1. 558) the city’s cellars. Ernauz arbitrarily chooses four masses of lead to melt in the vat, but does evoke visual images with the “waves” of molten metal and the simile comparing the shattered bits with scallions: “Nen i remandrat ja pesant une escalunie” (1. 575). Aimer briefly describes his mystifying bonnet in fewer words than Guillaume used to depict the boulder and imitates Roland by visualizing the gestures of surprise on the part of his victims: “La verrez barbes traire and gernuns si peler!” (1. 588). Bertrand’s probable reliance on the number two (1. 593)!° is coincidental to the logic of the two wings necessary for his flight (if indeed he flies), but he doubles it to four in delineating the leagues his aerial voyage will cover. He approaches hyperbole by cataloguing the game

animals that will flee before him: , Ne remandrat en bois cerf ne daim a fuir, Nule bise salvage ne chevrol ne gupil. (Il. 598-99)

Gerin’s lengthy boast is precise in the clearcut description of the heavy lance and the details of the trick he promises to perform, and it lacks stylistic artifice, unless one admits as hyperbole the piling up of adverbs to depict his agility: “Puis serrai si legers et ignals et aates” (1. 613), after his lance tips off the upper coin: “Si suéf et serid, ja nes muvrat li altre” (I. 612). 10 T prefer the Koschwitz emendation here; see Eduard Koschwitz, Karls des Grossen Reise nach Ferusalem und Constantinopel. Picherit conservatively retains the manuscript reading. He sees the shields thrown up so high, after Bertrand rattles them like drums, that the noise frightens the animals in the countryside.

72 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE In sum, the imagery lies in the imagination of the act to be performed. No ingenious poetic metaphor replaces the banal hyperboles of colloquial speech. Language here calls attention not so much to itself, as in Jakobson’s poetic function, as to the personality or the reputation of the warrior who speaks. But warriors were known to sing and compose poetry long before the “scop” in Beowulf and the vitriolic Bertran de Born. One recalls the passage in the Old English epic in which a warrior joyfully begins to sing

the hero’s praises after he has emerged victorious from combat with Grendel: ...eeee---.--- Hwilum cyninges pegn,

guma gilphleden, § gidda gemyndig, sé de ealfela ealdgesegena worn gemunde, — word Ober fand

sode gebunden; _secg eft ongan sid Beowulfes snyttrum styrian, ond on spéd wrecan spel gerade, wordum wrixlan; (Il. 867-74)"

[At times a thane of the king, a man skilled at telling adventures, songs stored in his memory, who could recall many of the stories of the old days, wrought a new tale in well-joined words; this man undertook with his art to recite in turn Beowulf’s exploit, and skillfully to tell an apt tale, to lend words to it.]!”

Although the warrior may well have been a scop, as Chickering translates,!? the text identifies him only as a “king’s thane, gab-laden,” thus a distant precursor of Charles and the peers who “wrought” tales “in welljoined words,” like poets.'* If we push our comparison of gab with lyric poem too far, the genre spills over into theater, for the gabeors with their tales do not represent the poet’s persona, as in, say, a sirventes by Bertran de Born. ‘Io claim that each boast is a first-person statement is to forget that Charles and the Peers are

actors in the narrative. Such an overlapping of genres is not surprising, however. Zumthor stressed this aspect of medieval literature repeatedly in

Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Fr. Klaeber. Beowulf, trans. E. Talbot Donaldson, 16. 3 Beowulf: A Dual-Language Edition, ed. and trans. Howell D. Chickering, Jr., |. 867. 14 Edmond Faral, Les fongleurs en France au Moyen Age, 4.

THE GENRE 73 his Essai de poétique médiévale: “Toute poésie y participait plus ou moins a ce que nous nommons théatre.”!* Lacking in our narrative are the gestures, costumes, stage props, and directions necessary to make the gab session a scene in a play, but with the information bequeathed by the text, it would be no difficult task to transform the episode into theater. We need only to glance at the dispute between Jew and Isaiah in the Jeu d’Adam to recall the similarities between chanson de geste and theater: Post dunc veniet Ysaias ferens librum in manu, magno indutus pallio; et dicat propheciam suam: Egredietur virga de radica Jesse, et flos de radice ejus ascendet, et requiescet super eum spiritus domini. [Then Isaiah will come bearing a book in his hand and clothed in a great robe. And let him say his prophecy: A rod will rise from Jesse’s root and a flower will ascend from his root and the Spirit of the Lord will descend upon him.] Or vus dirrai merveillus diz: Jessé fera de sa raiz Vergé issir qui fera flor, Qui ert digne de grant unor. Saint espirit l’avra si clos, Sor ceste flor iert sun repos. Tunc exsurget quidam de sinagoga, disputans cum Ysaia, et dicet et: [Then some one will come out of the synagogue, arguing with Isaiah, and will say to him:]

Or me respond, sire Ysaie, Est co fablé u prophecie? Que est ico que tu as dit? ‘Truvas le tu u est escrit? Tu as dormi, tu le sonjas? Est co a certes u as gas?

Ysaias: Co n’est pas fable, ainz est tut veir. Judeus: = Or le dus fai donques veeir. Ysaias: Co qué ai dit est prophecie.

‘5 Paul Zumthor, Essai de poétique médiévale, 431.

74 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Judeus: Tu me sembles viel redoté, Tu as le sens tres tot trublé. Tu me sembles devineor ... . (Il. 877-97)'°

All the trappings of theater appear: costume, stage directions, speakers labeled outside of the spoken discourse, and the attention to gesture and intonation urged by the author in the initial paragraph of the play. Quite coincidentally the word gab occurs in the Jew’s challenge (1. 888), but the

occasion marks quite logically the link between storytelling, truth, and boasting. ‘Che Jew aptly accuses the prophet of being a “devineor.” So also the French knights at Constantinople “divine” their vows, the most famous among them exaggerating personal qualities recognized by the audience. Thus the appropriateness of the gabs to the individual heroes is manifested intertextually. As actors imprisoned in a narrative framework of texts and traditions, the lyric “je” of the boasters is filtered through the author’s

perceptions. If we apply then the final criterion of poetry to the gab, we must suspend our disbelief for a moment and imagine that each gabeor is

speaking of himself in the first person rather than being set on stage through a narrator’s voice. Whatever the source of each gab, it is undeniable that each is distinctive, in contrast to the vows of the Jomsvikings. The intertextual relationship between the gabs, especially Charles’s and Roland’s, and the Chanson de

Roland has been overlooked by no one, not even by Morf, who is least willing to admit the specificity of the gabs.'” Favati regrets that only a few of the gabs can be traced to epic personalities, and Neuschafer stresses that the boasts aim at parodying, not specific chansons de geste, but rather the heroes themselves.'® Scheludko classifies the gabs according to a battery of origins ranging from social class to folk or religious myth, but the author’s efforts to individualize stand out, as if each knight were displaying his ego in the same jovial manner as would a lyric poet such as Francois Villon.!° 16 Robert A. Harden, ed., Le Feu d’Adam in Trois Pieces médiévales, 51-52. 17 See Jules Horrent, “Le Pélerinage de Charlemagne”: Essai d’explication littéraire; and

Henri Morf, “Etude sur la date, le caractére, et lorigine de la chanson du Pélerinage de Charlemagne.” '8 Guido Favati, ed., IJ “Voyage de Charlemagne”, 49; Hans-Jorg Neuschafer, “Le Voy-

age de Charlemagne en Orient als Parodie der Chanson de Geste,” 95. '9 Scheludko’s information, like Cross’s, merely confirms that the author relied on various traditions to distinguish the “personalities” of his heroes. Scheludko classifies the gabs of ‘Turpin and Guillaume as purely jongleuresque; Gerin’s as having jongleuresque qualities; Charles’s as entirely chivalric. Bernard’s is connected to motifs of the supernatural; Aimer’s falls under the category of the fairytale; Ogier’s (with Samson’s

THE GENRE 75 Favati makes a lucid argument that underscores the dependence of the Voyage on the Chanson de Roland for the personalities not only of Charles and Roland, but also of the particular God who comes to the emperor’s aid in both works. Because Favati links the two so tightly, he believes that Charles’s reference to a custom of boasting is a mere last-minute excuse rather than an allusion to a social ritual that may have made its way into France from some other culture. Favati separates the boasting from drinking, however, which is the other aspect of the excuse, and he could be right if it were not that tradition so often couples boasting with drinking after the evening meal, especially in northern texts. The contrast he draws between the boasts of the pagan peers in the Roland and the gabs sets off

dramatically the opposition between the unified aim of the Saracens’ threats and the variety of the French knights’ bragging in Constantinople. The Roland scene aims at portraying the Saracens’ frenzied anger. The boasts are, without exception, promises to accomplish military exploits,

they are usually short, and they repeat identical intentions: to harm the French peers, above all Roland, to bloody their swords, to regain the Span-

ish March, to conquer France, and to bring sorrow to Charles. The only individual who stands out is Margariz de Sebile, who also delivers the longest boast: Curant i vint Margariz de Sibilie, Cil tient la tere entrequ’as Cazmarine. Pur sa beltet dames li sunt amies, Cele nel veit vers lui ne s’esclargisset, Quant ele le veit, ne poet muér ne riet; N’i ad paien de tel chevalerie. Vint en la presse, sur les altres s’escriet E dist al rei: “Ne vos esmaiez mie! En Rencesvals irai Rollant ocire, Ne Oliver n’en porterat la vie; Li .XII. per sunt remés en martirie. Veez m’espee, ki d’or est enheldie, Si la tramist li amiralz de Primes. Jo vos plevis qu’en vermeill sanc ert mise.

strength), Berenger’s (Matt. 4:5—7), and Ernaut’s (martyrdom) are biblical; Naimes’s recalls hagiography; Bernard’s is reminiscent of hypnotic lore; Roland’s (with the skill established in the Chanson de Roland) and Olivier’s are popular in source, although the

latter reminds Scheludko, as others, of Guillaume d’Aquitaine’s Farai un vers pos mi sonelh. See D. Scheludko, “Zur Komposition der Karlsreise”; and Tom Peete Cross, “Observations on the Pélerinage Charlemagne.”

76 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Franceis murrunt e France en ert hunie. Carles li velz a la barbe flurie, Jamais n’ert jurn qu’il n’en ait doel e ire. Jusqu’a un an avrum France saisie; Gesir porrum el burc de saint Denise.” (Il. 955-73)”

Horrent (Essai, 67 n. 2) recalls that Stengel, over a century ago, called attention to the overwhelming strength Charles demonstrates with the sword in the Roland (ll. 3615-19).*! The emperor, despite his wound, fells Baligant by driving the “sword of France” in a customary epic blow through the emir’s bejewelled helmet, splitting his skull down to his white beard. In the Voyage Charles is first to brag, reflecting the necessary hierarchy, but his boast is relatively subdued, which Horrent interprets as a sign that he preserves his host’s as well as his own dignity (67). In fact, Charlemagne’s boast is the least extravagant so as to establish another hierarchy, springing

from the demands of generic structure, which requires that an order of outbidding be established in the sequence of gabs. The peers will thus be able surpass him in bragging, as was the case in the mannjafnaaor. The most individually applicable gab is that of Roland, whose powerful lungs remained legendary in French literature into the nineteenth century. Favati (47) pinpoints the specific trait in the Roland that the Voyage poet could have picked up: Co dist li reis: “Cel corn ad lunge aleine!” (Roland, |. 1789) Tant par ert fort m’aleine . . . (Voyage, |. 473)

Thus all that remains of Roland’s agony of horn-blowing, Favati maintains, is the mention of his breath. Filtered through the Voyage author’s imagination, pathos—the anguish of death in Roland—succumbs to the bathos of an earth-shattering, mustache-burning trumpet blast. But boasting, perhaps even in jest, forms an essential element of Roland’s personality. Favati recalls Roland’s bragging both before and during the battle of Roncevaux

that he will strike a thousand seven hundred blows and that Durendal’s 20 Unless otherwise specified, all quotations from the Oxford Roland are from The Song of Roland: An Analytical Edition, ed. Gerard J. Brault. 71 Rdmund Stengel, review of the first edition of Koschwitz’s Karls des Grossen Reise, in Literaturblatt fiir Germanische und Romanische Philologie (1881), col. 289; (1883), col. 438.

THE GENRE 77 steel will be covered with blood (Il. 1077-79). Indeed, Roland’s very first appearance in the Oxford version shows him boasting of his past exploits (ll. r95ff.), as was his habit, if we are to believe Ganelon’s anecdote about the apple (ll. 385ff.); Roland’s last appearance, too, mixes sorrow with bragging, for his dying prayer includes a long list of his past exploits (Il. 2322ff.). One could add grist to Favati’s mill by drawing attention to the curious association of the word gaber with Roland’s horn-blowing in Digby 23. Ganelon maintains that the trumpet blast is nothing more than Roland’s customary showing off before his peers: Pur un sul levre vat tute yur cornant. Devant ses pers vait il ore gabant. (Il. 1780-81)

When the Saracens hear Charles’s army respond to Roland’s last feeble sound of the o/ifant, they realize that it is no “joke” (“plaisanterie” as Foulet translates it):?? Seisante milie en i cornent si halt, Sunent li munt e respondent li val. Paien l’entendent, nel tindrent mie en gab. (Il. 2111-13)

‘Io gab is to be Roland. Even more than Charles, he sets the tone, acts as the model, for the remaining knights to emulate in their evening pastime at Constantinople.” The dispute over Olivier’s gab concerns us little here, for the mere existence of scholarly debate over it corroborates the argument that each gab is or tends to be an expression of a distinctive personality. One must take a stand, however, on the crucial lines 488 and 726, the first of which appears in the surviving diplomatic transcription as: Si io nel ai anut testimonie de lui cent feiz. 22 See Foulet’s glossary in La Chanson de Roland, ed. Joseph Bédier. 3 Both modern scholars and medieval writers have associated Roland’s mighty lungs with the miracle of the trumpets of Jericho. In the apocryphal chapter 60 of the PseudoTurpin Chronicle, Roland remembers Jericho in his prayer and God aids him by collapsing the walls of Granople. See Ronald N. Walpole, An Anonymous Old French Translation of the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle. Horrent recalls, however, that in the Voyage doors, not walls, are destroyed (68 n. 3).

78 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Koschwitz edits: Se jo ne I|’ai anuit, tesmoign de li, cent feiz,

and Aebischer: Si jo n’ai testimonie anut de li cent feiz.

Aebischer wonders just what the testimony might be.’* He suggests that the accomplishment of the gab hinges merely on causing the emperor’s daughter to lie for him. Aebischer himself notes, however, that none of the characters interprets Olivier’s gab in this way. The escut complains of the “erant huntage” Olivier wishes to perpetrate (491). Hugo is scandalized by the boast “Qu’en une sule nuit avreit cent feiz ma fille” (Koschwitz, 694). Line 726 only adds to this thorny problem, for it was expunctuated in the British Museum manuscript: Li quenz ne li fist la nuit mes que .XXX. feiz.

There can be no doubt as to the sense of the line: “The count did it to her that night only thirty times.” ‘Tyssens remains unsatisfied with Koschwitz’s laconic note: “Der Vers ist im Ms. durchstrichen; blassere Tinte” (40).”5 She argues that the line might have been crossed out for reasons other than transmission of an “improper” text, as Aebischer supposes (91). The ink in the line drawn through the words is lighter, and it seems improbable that the scribe would have changed quills as he was transcribing the text. ‘Tyssens conjectures (74) that the lines were perhaps out of order, a state of affairs that was meant to be rectified later, and that this was never done; but she ends by concluding, with Horrent, that most likely a prudish corrector corrupted the text by attempting to cast out this licentious reference. Not only does the textual witness of the Scandinavian translations and Galien le Restoré support the retention of line 726, so also do the traditions associated with such boasts. Scheludko was the first to link Olivier’s professed sexual energy with Guillaume d’Aquitaine’s claim in Farai un vers pos mu sonelh:

‘Tant las fotei com auzirets: Cen e quatre vint e ueit vetz, 74 Paul Aebischer, ed., Le Voyage de Charlemagne a fFérusalem et a Constantinople, go. > Le Voyage de Charlemagne a Férusalem et a Constantinople, trans. Madeleine ‘Tyssens,

73-74-

THE GENRE 79 Q’a pauc no’l rompei mos corretz E, mos arnes.”6

[I screwed them such as you will hear: One hundred and eighty-eight times, So much that I almost burst my strap And my harness.]

The association with lyric poetry, and even with the fabliau, is pertinent here, but one should not forget the tradition of the heitstrengingar, in particular the young Vagn Akason’s vow in the fomsvikinga saga to sleep with his enemy’s daughter without her family’s consent.’’ He is the only Jomsviking to achieve thorough success, for he ends up destroying the father and marrying the daughter. Olivier’s erotic adventure will bear noble fruit in later tradition in the birth of his son Galien le Restoré. There is no need prudishly to defend Olivier’s honor in the name of courtoisie. Courtesy in the Voyage is a far cry from that of the second half of the twelfth century, which is illustrated typically by Marie de France. Her heroes would never be lechers nor dream of dominating women by forcing themselves upon them. Marie represents her heroes as believing that the goal of their affection was always a partner worthy of lasting devotion, not a sex object to be jettisoned the moment their king wished to hurry off to his homeland. On

the other hand, as Matoré has shown, an epic hero of the late eleventh century who displayed the qualities of a faithful vassal was considered curteis.*° Glyn S. Burgess concurs in analyzing the two associations of curteis with Olivier in the Roland (Il. 576, 3755), but he neglects this pre-courtly epic meaning as it occurs in |. 484 of the Voyage: “Roland li curteis.”*? He focuses exclusively on its application to Oliver and the emperor’s daughter

(ll. 710, 716, 725). This cluster highlights the erotic connotation of the word. She is curteise (1. 710) through fear and complicity. He is curteis in reacting to her physical beauty (1. 716). After he has kissed her three times he exclaims: “Dame, mult estes bele” (I. 717). Her courtesy allows him to copulate with her thirty times and inspires her pledge of complete submission (l. 725). Whether it consists of a hundred or a mere thirty acts of coitus, the behavior attributed to courtesy reflects total male domination rather than a “polite safeguard against brutality” (Burgess, 112). Coulet was astute in suggesting that the source of Olivier’s licentiousness was a simple opposition to his famous sapientia, or that it even more specifically 6 Guillaume IX, duc d’Aquitaine, Les Chansons, ed. Alfred Jeanroy, 12. 27 Fomsvikinga saga, ed. Blake, ch. 26, 28-29. 8 Georges Matoré, Le Vocabulaire et la société médiévale, 178-79. 29 Glyn S. Burgess, “The Term courtois in Twelfth-Century French.”

80 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE stemmed from his rather “crude” words in the Oxford version: “Se puis veeir ma gente sorur Alde, Ne jerreiez jamais entre sa brace!” (Il. 1720 21).3°

Although Turpin’s gab seems less individually specific, Favati has perspicaciously uncovered, in the frequent allusions to his skill found in the Roland, seeds of the incredible acrobatic skills and the superior horsemanship here attributed to the archbishop. Turpin’s warhorse merits one of the few detailed descriptions in the Oxford version (ll. 1487-96), while the following words spoken by the archbishop show the value he places on horsemanship: Itel valor deit aveir chevaler Ki armes portet e en bon cheval set! En bataille deit estre forz e fiers,

U altrement ne valt III. deners. (Il. 1877-80)

Favati (48) claims that the spur symbolizes Turpin, just as Durendal stands

for Roland. Horrent (69) wonders if the archbishop is simply parodying his own skill as prelate, while Coulet sees an emphasis on the inherent contrast between warrior and priest. Horrent (7o n. 2) rejects this connection, however, and discerns nothing of the heroic Turpin in the “baladin qui nous est présenté.” Cross (350) believed that Turpin was being made to emulate ancient Irish heroes adept at juggling swords, shields, and apples. Granted that Turpin’s gab may not betray an easily identified personality trait, the boast itself remains distinctive. Even more significant is the fact that certain Norse redactors recognized a pattern in the gabs of tying personality to boast. Accordingly they re-arranged the sequence so that Turpin, rather than Bernard, would, with God’s help and an appropriate sign of the Cross, effect the miracle of the waters, the last and most decisive gab to be accomplished.*! Guillaume’s proposal to toss a gigantic “wrecking ball” through the palace walls corresponds to the epic figure he cuts in Le Cowronnement de Louis *° Jules Coulet, Etudes sur l'ancien poéme francais du “Voyage de Charlemagne en Orient”,

309-11. Horrent (Essai, 69 n. 3) quibbles over the notion that “incontinence” is the contrary of “sagesse” but admits that one cannot avoid, as Aebischer has tried to do, the inherent obscenity of Olivier’s gab. The essential point is that the author strove to differentiate the boasts, even though he might not have been able to link each personality with a tradition. Coulet expresses, I believe, the poet’s situation: “On sent, en effet, a mesure qu’on avance dans |’énumeration des gabs comme une impuissance de |’auteur a imaginer de nouveau” (312). 31 Paul Aebischer, VN, 47.

THE GENRE oI and Le Charroi de Nimes, where the brute strength of his arm becomes the stylized means of dispensing with his enemies. This trait is captured in the

epithet “Fierabrace” that was applied to him in later texts, and a poem devoted to his deeds has been assigned that title.* Although the narrator and the escut allude to Naimes’s robust vigor in his advanced years, nothing in his boast nor in those that follow can be identified with a recognizable epic personality, which is to say that these gabs could be pronounced by any hero, as the Norse translators have demonstrated in their tampering with the attributions (VN, 47-48). The scintillating variety of feats imagined in the remaining gabs has led scholars on a largely futile search for potential sources, to which I have alluded. Hor-

rent has ably summarized these attempts in his line-by-line explication (70-74).

We have seen that the poetic trait of lyric repetition is present in these gabs, while that of language calling attention to itself is least often found. Imagery, metaphor, metonymy, and the like are supplemented by the individualization of the proposed feats. The proposed actions—flying, jumping off towers, clowning, escape trick—are jovial visual and auditory images that counterbalance the lack of elaborate stylistic features and are indisputably differentiated. Given all these qualities, one might expect the gab to materialize as an identifiable genre of lyric poetry, and a fitting place to look for it would be in the literary production of the troubadours.

The Old Occitan gap Fechner, influenced by the use of gap in Old Occitan (slightly different from its usage in the /angue d’oil, as we have seen) and by scholarly convention, approached lyric poetry with a view to ferreting out themes rather than generic expectations.*? Thus one can justify his delving into Prahlreden in biblical and classical texts, or his perception of boasting as so universal in character that no source could be pinned down for the gap in Occitan verse. In Keller’s footsteps, he recognized that the lyric gap was distinct from the epic gab, especially in regard to boasting at banquets. Because his

approach was thematic, he was able to treat poems in which the word gab(ar) was absent as long as any one of the elements in his definition appeared, which included bragging about jousting, castles, good hawking, adventure, and exploits with beautiful women. His point of departure was a quotation uncovered by Tobler, “nel riposare la sera, i cavalieri si incom32 Horrent, 70; and see Jean Frappier, Les Chansons de geste du cycle de Guillaume d’Orange, 1:94-96. 33 Henceforth I will distinguish the Old Occitan gap from the Old French gab by the respective spellings.

82 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE inciaro a vantare, chi di bella donna, chi di bella giostra, chi di bello castello, chi di bello astore, chi di bella ventura” (from novella 61 of Cento novelle antiche, where a song by Richart de Berbezilh is inserted).*+ Armed with

these motifs, Fechner sifts through a catalogue of texts from Guillame d’Aquitaine through Cerveri de Girona, which provide us with a picture of gab-like occurrences ranging from a mere hint of bragging to entire poems. I refer the reader to his sensitive analyses of the fragmentary bits that he gleaned, but will pass in review examples of complete poems that may represent the gab as a literary type. Modern commentators have labelled Marcabru’s “D’aisso lau Dieu” a gap.’ It apparently expresses the poet’s individual sentiments, though critics are not sure whether they are playful (Vossler terms it a Scherzlied), or bitterly polemical, as Roncaglia believes, or constitute a “gegen-gap,” in Kohler’s terminology.** Because the poem has attracted so much attention

under the rubric of gap, it merits inclusion here to serve as a contrast between lyric and epic concepts of the term.

I D’aisso lau Dieu e saint Andrieu

com non es de major albir 3 qu’ieu sul, so’m cuig,

e no'n fatz bruig

e volrai vos lo per que dir; 6 II C’assatz es lait s'intratz en plait

don non sabretz a lutz issir, 9 e non es bo jutgetz razo

si non la sabetz defenir. 12 Il De gignos sens sul SI Manens que mout sui greus ad escarnir; 15 lo pan del fol caudet e mol

manduc, e lais lo mieu frezir: 18 34 Adolf ‘Tobler, “Exegetisches: Plus a paroles an plain pot De vin qu’an un mui de cervoise,” 85. 35 Aurelio Roncaglia, “Il ‘Gap’ di Marcabruno,” 47-48; 69 n. 49. 36 Vossler cited in Fechner, “Zum Gap,” 23; Erich Kohler, “Gabar e rire: Bemerkungen zum gap in der dichtung der Trobadors,” 319.

THE GENRE 33 IV Tant quant li dur li pliu e‘il jur

c’om no’m puosca de lui partir, 21 e quan li faill mus e badaill

e prenda del mieu lo dezir; 24 V Quwieu jutg’a drei que fols follei

e savis si gart al partir, 27 qu’en dobl’es fatz e dessenatz

qui's laiss’a fol enfolletir. 30 VI D’estoc breto ni de basto

no sap om plus ni d’escrimir: 33 qu’ieu fier autrui e’m gart de lui

e no‘is sap del mieu colp cobrir. 36 Vil En Pautrui broill chatz cora’m voill

e fatz mos dos canetz glatir, 39 e'l tertz sahus eis de rahus

bautz e ficatz senes mentir. A2 VUl Mos alos es en tal deves res mas ieu non s’en pot jauzir: 45 aissi l’ai claus

de pens venaus

que nuills no lo’m pot envazir. 48 IX Del plus torz fens sui ples e prens,

de cent colors per mieills chauzir; 51 fog porti sai et aigua lai

ab que sai la flam’escantir. 54

34 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Xx Cascun si gart, c’ab aital art

mi fatz a viure e morir; 57 qwieu sui l’auzels c’als estornels

fatz los mieus auzellos noirir. 60 I have reproduced Roncaglia’s text (59-61) and rely to a certain extent on his translation (61-62): I. [For one thing I have praised God and Saint Andrew: that no one is of better judgment than I am; I believe it and I make no fuss about it (Roncaglia: “non ne faccio millanteria”) and want to tell you the reason why;

II. For it is very disagreeable if you enter into an argument where you don’t know how to get out, and it is not good to judge a case if you don’t know how to bring it to a wise end.

I1J. In cunning I am so rich that I am very slow to be deceived; I drink the fool’s wine and eat his soft bread and let my own cool down (for storing up).?’ IV. As long as it lasts, I pledge and swear to him that no one can separate me from it, and when it runs out, let him fret and yawn and begin to desire mine; [Goldin: “make me part from him; and when he’s out of his, let him stare at mine with his mouth open and long for it.”]

V. For I judge it right that the fool acts like a fool and the wise man attends to the outcome; for he is twice silly and stupid who lets himself be duped by a fool.

VI. Whether fighting with Breton’s pike or club, whether fencing with sword, no one knows more than I, for I strike my opponent and guard against him and he cannot escape my blow.

Vil. In another’s grounds I hunt as I wish and make my two little dogs yelp and the third, a bloodhound, springs from cover, truthfully bold and taut.

VIII. My property (/leu) is so secure that no one but I can enjoy it: thus I have enclosed it with grilled bars so that no one but I can go in. 37 Frederick Goldin, ed. and trans., Lyrics of the Troubadours and Trouveres, 58 n. 3, records this interpretation of frezir by K. Lewent.

THE GENRE 85 IX. Of the most devious feigning I am full and pregnant, with a hundred colors*® in order better to choose; I carry fire here and water there with which I can extinguish the flame.

X. Let all be on guard! For with such art I play at living and dying; for I am the bird that makes the starlings feed my chicks.]??

This poem is esthetically pleasing, but is it a gab? Its poetic characteristics, such as formal repetitions, imagery that includes intriguing, sometimes undecipherable metaphor, or the fact that it manifests a strong individuality, are undeniable. Other poems that could be called gaps or gabs are not necessarily marked by repeated prosodic forms. Thus formally it corresponds to other lyric poems, rather than to identifiable, distinguishable forms of a special sub-type. Its versification is characterized by coblas singulars with rim unissonans derived from the tripertiti caudati (Roncaglia, 62, citing Errante), but the tripartite structure is far from the one we identified in the gabs of the Voyage. In short, it lacks most of the ingredients associated with the epic gab: alcohol, companionship or contest, bedtime, potential enemy, an adversary present or represented, and the forming of vows. [he sole epic element in Marcabru’s gap is boasting. In other words, scholars have labeled this poem a gap because the word serves as a synonym

endowed with connotations stemming from the medieval lexicon, rather than because it denotes a literary genre.” Fechner quotes in full a second boasting poem, Assatz sai d’amor ben parlar (P.-C., 389:18) by Raimbaut d’Aurenga, in which the poet, tongue in cheek, professes to be the perfect teacher of love. In a text of 61 lines he brags of his abilities and offers advice freely “ad ops dels autres amadors,” |. 2 (“for the benefit of other lovers”). He recommends threatening ladies who fail to respond appropriately, even striking them if the answer is truly negative:

38 Roncaglia notes that scholars have suggested ‘means, meanings, lies, loyalties’ for the word colors. Very likely color alludes to what medieval rhetoricians called ‘shading’, as Douglas Kelly defines it: “choice of affective epithets deemed fitting for each type of person or action” (Douglas Kelly, Medieval Imagination, 72). Here Marcabru refers to the numerous roles he may play, the rhetorical devices at his disposal, the garb he may choose to wear, in order to “feign.” Goldin (60) suggests “lies, tricks.” 39 Roncaglia translates “cuckoo” for auzels because it lays its eggs in other birds’ nests. See Goldin, 60 n. 5.

40 Aside from the scholars mentioned above, the continuing manifestation of this tendency, or habit, appears in Gerald A. Bond’s analysis of “The Structure of the gap of the Count of Poitiers, William VII,” 162-72. He calls Ben veuill que sapchon li pluzor (P.C. 183.2) “the famous gap, or boasting poem” (162).

86 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Il. Si voletz dompnas guazanhar, Quan querretz que’us fassan honors, Si'us fan avol respos avar, Vos las prenetz a menassar; E si vos fan respos peiors Datz lor del ponh per mieg sas nars; Et si son bravas siatz braus! Ab gran mal n’auretz gran repaus. (il. 17-24)"

[If you wish to win over ladies, when you seek to obtain honors from them, and they give you a vile, stingy reply, you begin to threaten them; and if they give you an even worse answer, plant your fist in the middle of their nose; and if they are rude, you be rude! With great difficulty you will have great repose for all that.]

In this text at least the word gabar appears: Mas so qu’ieu ensenh tenetz car Si non voletz sofrir dolors Ab penas et ab loncs plorars! Qu’aissi lor for’envers e maus Si mais m’agrades lor ostaus. Mas per so’m puesc segurs guabar Qwieu, et es mi grans deshonors, Non am ren, ni sai qu’es enquar! (Il. 44-51) [But what I teach, hold dear, if you do not wish to suffer sorrow with pain and long sobs! For thus I would be wicked and contrary toward them, even

if their hospitality pleased me more. But for that reason I can surely be proud, and it is my great dishonor, that I love no one, nor know not yet

| what love is!]

Pattison translates the verbal construction in |. 49 as “I can extol [them],” adding the object pronoun where there is none. One might also justifiably render the expression with “I surely don’t care” (French: “je m’en moque”), but the translation I suggest above is preferable as it reflects both the relatively common meaning in Old French and Occitan of se Jouer, “be proud,” and the general burlesque, contradictory tone of the poem. +! Walter T. Pattison, The Life and Works of Raimbaut d’Orange, no. XX.

THE GENRE 87 Consistent with his habit of assigning jovial poems to a genre labeled gap, Pattison uses the concept in regard to this and other texts, but without explaining precisely what the structural elements of the genre might be. He seems to attribute to it humor, burlesque, and satire (189; cf. Fechner, 28), or in the case of the above poem, a certain prosodic negligence. He conjectures that Raimbaut might have considered it “an inferior artistic

genre and ... not subject to the same careful workmanship” required of the chanson (137). But, he admits, “the other gaps do not show anything like the quantity of repetition [of rhymes] we find here” (ibid.). We are forced to conclude that the genre of the gap had no discernible poetic form in Raimbaut d’Aurenga’s production. Fechner claims that Pattison failed to indicate that Raimbaut’s poems 28, 32, and 36 should be included among the gaps. In short, it is theme, motif, or tone, rather than structure, that lead scholars to apply the term gap to an ill-defined group of troubadour texts. Gap will very likely remain a handy lexicographical tool, but Fechner is correct in calling attention to an absence of clear distinctions in its use, particularly by Pattison: “Allerdings gibt Pattison nirgends an, was er unter einem gap versteht” (28). D’Arco Silvio Avalle recognized that Peire Vidal’s Drogoman senher, s’ieu

agues bon destrier (P.-C., 364:18) could be classed as a vanto.” He applied the term with no constraints of definition attached, and used it as a synonym of gab, judging it “indubbiamente uno dei pit disinvolti e felici di tutta la letteratura provenzale” (223): I. Drogoman senher, s’ieu agues bon destrier, En fol plag foran intrat tuich mei guerrier: Qu’aqui mezeis quant hom lor mi mentau Mi temon plus que cailla esparvier, E no prezon lur vida un denier, Tan mi sabon fer e salvatg’e brau.

II. Quant ai vestit mon fort ausberc doblier E seint lo bran que’m det En Gui l’autrier, La terra crolla per aqui on ieu vau; E, non ai enemic tan sobrancier Que tost no’m lais las vias e'l sentier, ‘Tan mi dupton quan senton mon esclau.

Il. D’ardimen vaill Rotlan et Olivier E de domnei Berart de Mondesdier; Car soi tan pros, per aquo n’ai bon lau, #2 T)’Arco Silvio Avalle, ed., Peire Vidal, Poeste, 221.

88 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Que sovendet m’en venon messatgier Ab anels d’aur, ab cordon blanc e nier, Ab tals salutz don totz mos cors s’esjau.

IV. En totas res sembli ben cavallier; Si'm sui, e sai d’amor tot son mestier E tot aisso qu’a drudairi’abau; Anc en cambra non ac tan plazentier Ni ab armas tan mal ni tan sobrier, Don m’am’e’m tem tals que no’m ve ni m’au.

V. E s’leu agues caval adreg corsier, Suau s’estes lo reis part Balaguier E dormis si planamen e suau; Que’il tengr’en patz Proens’e Monpeslier, Que raubador ni malvatz rocinier No rauberon ni Autaves ni Crau.

VI. E sil reis torn’a Tholos’el gravier, E n’eis lo coms e siei caitiu dardier, Que tot jorn cridon: “Aspa et Orsau!”, De tan mi van qu’ieu n’aurai'l colp premier, E ferrai tan que n’intraran doblier, Et ieu ab lor, qui la porta no’m clau.

VII. Es’ieu cossec gilos ni lauzengier Qu’ap fals cosselh gastan l’autrui sabrier E baisson joi a presen et a frau, Per ver sabra qual son li colp qu’ieu fier: Que s’avia cors de fer o d’acier No lur valra una pluma de pau.

VII. Na Vierna, merce de Monpeslier En raina sai amaretz cavallier; Don jois m’es mais cregutz per vos, Dieu lau. (Avalle, ed., 224-29.)

I. [My Lord Drogoman, if I had a good charger, my enemies would be in bad shape: for as soon as any one mentions me to them, they fear me more than a quail a sparrow hawk, and consider their life worth less than a penny, since they know me to be so proud, savage and cruel.* *} Goldin translates “Drogoman” as “Go-between” (251) and accepts Hoepfner’s suggestion that it is a senbal for Guillaume VIII of Montpellier (250 n. 1). Avalle (221) also

prefers Hoepfner’s identification to those put forward by lAnglade, Jeanroy, and Lejeune.

THE GENRE 39 Il. When I have donned my strong double hauberk and girded the brand that Lord Gui gave me, the earth shakes wherever I go; and I have no enemy so arrogant that quickly he does not leave me roads and paths, they fear me so much when they hear my step. II. In courage I am worth Roland and Oliver and in winning ladies Berart of Montdidier; for my prowess I am renowned, for often messengers bring me golden rings, black and white ribbons, with greetings that rejoice my heart. [Goldin: “love letters that fill me with joy.”]*

IV. In all things I appear to be a good knight, and so I am, and I know all the art of love, in fact of all that touches upon success with women; never in the bedroom was there so pleasing a man, none under arms so ferocious or so superior, thus I am loved and feared without even being seen or heard.

V. And if I owned a fast steed, peaceful would be the king in regard to Balaguer and he would sleep fully and gently, for I would keep peace

in Provence and Montpellier so that neither brigands nor motley highwaymen would ever rob Autaves or la Crau (“rocky lands worth little”*).

VI. And if the king turns toward Toulouse, along the river shore, and if the count comes out with his miserable bowmen who are constantly shouting [their battle cries] “Aspa” and “Orsau,” I vow that I will have the first blow, and I will strike so hard that they will return falling one on the other, and I with them, if the gate is not closed before me.

Vil. And if I get hold of a jealous husband or a gossipmonger who with false counsel spoil the superiority of others (“other’s pleasure” Hamlin, et al.) and diminish joy openly or secretly, truly he will know what blows I strike: for even if he had a body of iron or steel it would not be worth a peacock’s plume.

VI. Lady Vierna, thanks to Montpellier, in this dispute* you will love a knight; since my joy has grown because of you, I praise God.]*”

We hear a distant echo of the gab when Peire posits the situation of his king marching on ‘Toulouse and vows to earn the honor of striking the first * On the salut d'amour as an epistolary genre, see Pierre Bec, “Pour un essai de définition du salut d’amour,” Estudis romanics 9 (1961): 191-201.

4 Frank R. Hamlin, Peter T. Ricketts, and John Hathaway, Introduction a l’ancien provencal, 157.

46 Avalle (229) links raina ‘battle, dispute, struggle’ with the gap aspect of the poem. 47 See Hamlin, et al.; Goldin; D’Arco Silvio Avalle, ed., Peire Vidal, Poesie; and Joseph Anglade, ed., Peire Vidal, Les Poesies, the latter with translations.

go THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE blow, sending the count’s mercenary Basque archers running back to shelter, and when he brags that he will cut down the conventional enemies of fin’ amors, gossips and jealous contenders. While the poet nowhere uses the word gap itself, he does call the poem “mi van” in |. 34. If Viscardi labels the poem a gap, Avalle properly categorizes it as a canso-sirventés with seven coblas and a tornada rhyming aab/aab; in short, it displays no striking

formal resemblance to the poems we have previously looked at.** Its similarity to them lies in its mocking tone, what W. Keller must have meant when he distinguished a “boniment-Character,” i.e., a huckster quality, in the lyric gaps.” Keller hints at the social entertainment inherent in the epic gabs, which, if I understand him, would involve the competitive aspect of the Constantinople session and the evidence of social custom revealed in Germanic texts. Because the troubadour corpus abounds in competitive poetry, as in the partimen, the tenso, and the joc partit, we must now consider their possible relationship to the gab. A number of poems are not habitually classed in a gap genre but have been assigned to other genres, so I will not cite them in full. Among the earliest is Cercamon’s tenso with Guilhalmi, which Fechner considers “einen gap-artigen Mannervergleich” (34) and relates directly to the Norse mannjafnadr. Cercamon, who has just lost his patron, visits his colleague Guilhalmi, apparently younger, certainly less known, and perhaps even a disciple. The “maistre,” as Guilhalmi addresses him, worries about his situation and complains that not even the clergy will aid him: E no'm socor la clerzia, Non puesc mudar no’m cofort Co fay, can conois sa mort, Lo signes, que bray e cria°°

[And the clergy gives me no succor, [and] I can’t help comforting myself like the swan that laments and cries when it recognizes its approaching death... .]

Guilhalmi immediately responds with assuaging words: Car lo bos temps ve, so cre, Que auretz aital guazalha #8 Antonio Viscardi, Corso di filologia romanza: Poesia trobadorica (Milan, 1965-66), 79 (cited by Avalle, 221). *” Wilhelm Keller, “Das Sirventes ‘Fadet joglar’ des Guiraut von Calanso,” tog—10 Nn. §.

‘i Les Poésies de Cercamon, ed. Alfred Jeanroy, VII, Il. 3-6.

THE GENRE QI Que vos dara palafre O renda que mais vos valha, Car lo coms de Peitieus ve. (Il. 14-18)

[For the opportune moment comes, I believe, when you will have such an association (patron) who will give you a palfrey or income which will be worth even more to you, for the Count of Poitiers is coming.]°!

The second half of the poem is comprised of rapid two-line exchanges, as Guilhalmi continues to offer reasons for hope that are rejected by Cercamon, until finally, suggests Fechner, the younger poet begins to wonder if his master may not oust him from a profitable patronage relationship. But Fechner bases this interpretation on the missing line 45:

V. — “Maistre, n’ajatz coratge D’efan ni d’ome leugier.” — “Guilhalmi, sobre bon guatge Vos creyria volontier.” — “Maistre, man bon destrier An li home de paratge Per sufertar al derrier.” — “Guilhalmi, fort e salvatge (Il. 37-45)

[“Master, have not the heart of a child or a weak man.” “Guilhalmi, with a guarantee I would willingly believe you.” “Master, noblemen own many

a good warhorse to support their rear ends.” “Guilhalmi, strong and wild... .”] Are we to conjecture that the missing line contained a boast that Cercamon was indeed strong and wild, capable of carrying the weight that any noblemen might place upon him? Without specifying his guess at the line’s content, Fechner surmises: “So scheint es auch der Sinn der heute verlorenen Zeile 45 zu sein, dass Guilhalmi befiirchtet, der bertihmtere Cercamon k6nne seine Stelle einnehmen und ihn brotlos machen” (34). Is this

51 Since Guillaume X had died April 9, 1137, and his daughter’s marriage date was May 30, the poem was probably composed sometime during those two months, making it the oldest known tenso (Fechner, 34). The poem refers to the new count (I. 50).

Q2 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE the crux of the competition between them, or does not the debate rather center on Cercamon’s complaints countered by Guilhalmi’s consolations? Some justification for Fechner’s view may be hidden in the two garbled lines immediately following the blank:

VI. — “Maistre, josca la brosta Vos pareis al teit novel.” (Il. 46-47)

Among the interpretations listed by Jeanroy for the two lines, Dejeanne’s reading (“josta la brosta Vos pareisso.]| teit novel,” which he translates: “pres du feuillage vous apparaissent les toits nouveaux”) may be the most fitting.”

One pictures Cercamon as hiding in the bushes ready to burst forth under a new roof, that of Guilhalmi’s patron. But Cercamon, to the poem’s end, remains pessimistic about his future: — “Guilhalmi, fols qui'eus escota: Vos pagatz d’autrui borcel.” (Il. 53-54)

[Guilhalmi, he is foolish to listen to you: you are paying with another’s purse. |

Fechner perceives Marxist overtones in that two members of a lower social

class are disputing property, which explains his linking the poem to the Norse mannjafnadr. However that might be, the essential difference between this poem and those labeled gaps by modern scholars is its confrontation between two participants, as opposed to unilateral boasting. On the other hand, neither of these contestants is actually boasting, and, although they dispute the future, the text fails to apprise us of the outcome. We never learn the fate of Cercamon’s patronage problem as we did the outcome of Beowulf’s debate with Unferd, the Jomsvikings’ oaths before King

Sveinn Fork-Beard, or the boasts of Charlemagne and the peers in King Hugo’s Constantinople. An additional participant and a glimpse of an outcome are found in the famous joc partit among Savaric of Malleo, Gaucelm Faidit, and Uc de la Bacalaria (P.-C., 167:26). Savaric invites his two companions to choose which of three men who love the same lady is the most fortunate: the one at whom she casts an amorous glance, the one whose hand she presses, or the one whose foot she touches with her own: 52 J.-M.-L. Dejeanne, ed., “Le ‘Troubadour Cercamon.”

THE GENRE 93 e chascus prendetz lo plus bo e laissatz me qualque‘us volhatz. (Il. 3-4)” [And each of you take the finest (position) and leave me whichever one you wish. |

Gaucelm is partial to the amorous look, for hand-shaking, he maintains, is a common greeting, and foot-touching may be accidental (Il. 14-26). Uc

feels the look is a foolish and unreliable sign of love, while the gentle ungloved hand can move the heart; and let Savaric argue for the foot gesture: E’n Savarics, car part tan gen, mantenga'l caussigar cortes de pe, qu’eu no'l mantenrai ges. (Il. 37-39) [And Lord Savaric, for he proposes so well (Savaric initiated this joc partit), let him stand up for the courteous touch of the foot, for I will not argue for it at all.]

Responding to this summons, Savaric exclaims that the best is left for him, for the foot movement escapes the gossip’s eyes and is a joyous, unmistakable gesture. Hand pressing carries no significant message, and Gaucelm,

he jeers, would not prize the glance if he knew as much of love as he pretends. Gaucelm retorts that the eyes convey the message of the heart: qu’olh descobron als amadors

| so que reten el cor paors; don totz los plazers d’amor fan. E maintas vetz rizen gaban caussiga'l pe a mainta gen domna ses autr’ entendemen. (Il. 57-62)

[For eyes reveal to lovers what fear retains in the heart; whence come all pleasures of love. And many a time, laughing and joking, a lady rubs against anyone’s foot without other thought.] 53 “Jeu-parti entre Savaric de Mauleon, Gaucelm Faidit et Uc de la Bacalaria” in Chrestomathie provencale, ed. Bartsch, 169-72.

94 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE He needles Uc for his flawed reasoning that pressing hands signify love. Uc replies that eyes can be treacherous. If a ficklehearted lady pushed his foot, he would not be overjoyed. The hand squeeze is worth a hundred little kicks, for if love pleases not the heart, it would not be transmitted by the hand.

After each poet has chosen and defended a point of view and rebutted the others, each claims in a short strophe to have won the debate. Savaric refers the contestants to a “Bodyguard who conquered him”

(“mos Gardacors que m’a conques,” |. 82), and to a certain Lady Maria. Gaucelm relies on his lady, Guilhelma de Benaugues, to prove he 1s right. Uc knows a pleasant, gay heart into whose trust the judgment can be confided, but recognizes that the game is over, and the decision is split three ways:

e sai un’ ab gai cors plazen en que'l jutjamens fora mes, mas pro vei n’i a mais de tres. (Il. 91-93)

In contrast to the gabs, no drinking, no banquet, no castle or palace is mentioned. The participants make no vows, and no consequences stem from the contest: the upshot remains conjectural and extra-textual. The performances suggested are not farfetched, but merely reflect interpretations of banal social conventions. On the other hand, each contestant is personally involved in the discourse and each is invited to participate, although without the hierarchy we have observed in narrative texts. ‘This is

not to deny the order that is strictly adhered to in the poem: Savaric, Gaucelm, and Uc speak in rotation, and each argument fills a strophe, just as each gab (that of Charles excepted) corresponds to a laisse. ‘These similarities lend more credence to the notion that the gab imitates lyric poetry than vice-versa, or than that the joc partit is a kind of gab.

The final piece of evidence in our effort to explore the relationships between the gab and the lyric gap is Uc de Saint-Circ’s tenso, which Fechner

highlights as including “fast alle unsere Motivformen” (31), and which Kohler hints is closest to the gabs of the Voyage (318). The poem (P.-C., 457:14) merits quotation in full: (LE VICOMTE) En vostr’aiz farai vezer, N’Uc de Saint Circ, anz del pascor, Si que’i farai derrocar tor Et aut mur e fossat cazer;

THE GENRE 95 Que trop menon gran bobanssa 5 N’Ucs e’n Arnautz, si Dieus mi gar; Mas eu (la) lor farai baissar, O non vuoill aver honransa Ni portar escut ni lanssa.

(UC DE SAINT-CIRC)

Seigner, li gap que faitz lo ser IO Vos oblidon el dormidor, E ja no conquera valor Rics hom, sil gab non torna en ver; Et ill non an esperanssa

Que sobre lor ausetz passar 15

Sil coms Gui no‘us ven ajudar; E s'il ven, faitz li flanssa Mais gazaing si vai en Franssa.

(LE VICOMTE) N’Uc, eu ai ben tant de poder

Que, si ja‘l coms Guis no’m socor, 20 Q’ieu'ls tornarai en tal error que farai los gaps remaner D’En Arnaut e la fermanssa Qu’el ditz ge sai venrra cassar,

Mas eu puosc ben d’aitan gabar 25 Que del dich penrai venganssa Tal don totz temps n’er membranssa.

(UC DE SAINT-CIRC) Seigner, nuills hom non pot saber, Quant s’aseton doi jogador,

A cal seran li ris ni‘l plor 30 Tro'ls vei’om del taulier mover; Ni segon la mia esmanssa Hom non deu lo dia lauzar En troi qu’aven a I|’avesprar,

Qe'l maitin vos er semblanssa 35

‘Tals res qe’l ser desenanssa.

(LE VICOMTE) N’Uc, fols fon qui sa‘us fetz passar, Q’ieu no‘us ai ren en cor a dar, Ni non cobriretz la panssa

Ab draps q’ieu vos don de Franssa. 40

96 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE (UC DE SAINT-CIRC) Seigner, de vos mi puosc lauzar sol roncin m’en laissatz tornar Qe'm det mos seigner q’enanssa Guibertz de pretz e d’onranssa.**

(The Viscount (of Torena): P'Il be seen, Lord Uc de Saint-Circ, in your part of the world before Easter, and [ll demolish towers and cause high walls to fall in the moats; for Lord Uc and Lord Arnaut are demonstrating great arrogance, God save me; but I will take them down a notch or [Il not have the honor of bearing shield or lance. Uc de Saint-Circ: The boasts that you make in the evening, you forget when you fall sleep, and never will a powerful man acquire honor unless he makes his boasts come true. As for the others they do not expect you dare attack them unless Count Gui comes to help you; and if he comes, assure him that he has more to gain if he goes to France. The Viscount: Lord Uc, I am powerful enough, even if Count Gui offers me no aid, to cause them so much distress that I'll make worthless the boasts of Lord Arnaut, who said he would come here to hunt me, but I can brag indeed that of his word I will take such vengeance that forever he will remember it. Uc de Saint-Circ: Lord, no man can know, when two gamblers sit down to play, to which one will fall the laughter or the tears before one sees them leave the table; nor in my estimation should one praise the day before evening comes, for in the morning such a thing may have an appearance that in the evening lost its meaning. The Viscount: Lord Uc, he was foolish who had you come here, for I still have nothing to give you, nor will you cover your big belly with the sheets from France I gave you. Uc de Saint-Circ: Lord, I can be content with you if only you let the nag be returned to me that was given me by my Lord Guibert, which adds to his honor and worth. ]

In the first strophe, the Viscount brags in terms that recall the peers’ boasts in Constantinople. He vows, like Guillaume, to destroy towers and tear down walls, and emphasizes the visual: “me farai vezer,” a formula found in the mouths of the French gabeors. He names his enemies, calls upon God to aid him, and inspires judgments by Uc, who plays a role similar to that of the escut. His remark that gabs are forgotten during the night and that a man of honor must execute his boast (Il. 10-13) echoes 54 Poésies de Uc de Saint-Circ, ed. A. Jeanroy and J.-J. Salverda de Grave, 114-17.

THE GENRE Q7 the fate of the Jomsvikings, who awaken in the morning with the previous evening’s drunken vows weighing heavily upon them. The Viscount’s boast, like those of French and Scandinavian warriors, risks leading to a catastrophe, but the threat extends beyond the limits of the text. The warnings of Uc, who tends to be more a friendly counselor than a hostile delegate, only inspire further outcries. The poet’s advice, linking the fragility of the promises to gambling and to the passage of the day, is essentially a reprise of his comment on the validity of accomplishing a gab to retain one’s honor. Such repetition of the advice with only a variation in imagery accords with the qualities of the tenso, of lyric poetry, but not with those of the gab. A boast in narrative context, like the flyting, the heitstrenging, the vows, demands

an outcome. This text not only omits the consequences, but it abruptly changes subject from the Viscount’s bragging to the poet’s economic situation. Thus this gap-related tenso remains distant from the gabs; it is as if the Voyage author had suddenly broken his pact with the audience and centered the narrative upon himself. The lyric gap lacks a formal identity. Instead it bears a thematic unity,

which has led modern scholars to refer to certain poems, for example, Guillaume IX’s Ben vuelh que sapchon li pluzor and Marcabru’s D’aisso lau Dieu, as gaps. When Kohler encountered the generic problem of the gaps,

he too was forced to classify lyric poems according to thematic matter: (1) warlike boasting, (2) sexual prowess, (3) proclaiming one’s poetic ability, (4) the “professional” gap.*> He had no doubt, however, that the gap was a

marginal genre or a proto-genre: “Wenn der gap eine vor- und ausserliterdrische Gattung gewesen ist, woran kaum gezweifelt werden kann” (325). Because the gap only enjoyed a subliterary existence, he continued, it was allotted no appreciable generic significance. In a shrewd and convincing exposition, he argued that the social base, with its ascendant group of juvenes, found expression in the literary superstructure we call the gap.*° But the literary hierarchy could concede no generic independence to the

gap because it was a vehicle for attacks on courtly mesura. ‘The system admitted the gap, then, only as a safety valve and shunted it off it to a vague thematic status beneath even the secondary genres such as the sirventes and the tenso.

The epic gab and the lyric gap share certain features, although significant ingredients are absent from the lyric manifestation, especially the conse55 Kohler, “Gabar e rire,” 317-21. 6 Kohler discerns the courtly aspirations of these youths in their poetry. Guillaume IX and Raimbaut d’Aurenga were, however, first-rank representatives of the old, established aristocracy, who found themselves in some conflict with the upcoming juvenes. Kohler views Marcabru’s gap as a protest in the name of the juvenes against moral rigors (320-21).

98 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE quences of boasting. The epic gab and its predecessors, the vow, the flyting,

and the eitstrenging, include in the text itself an accounting of responsibility for the speakers’ own words. ‘The speech act leads to a physical act. The lyric poem depends on different expectations, for even with a contest among several participants, as in the joc partit, one never learns from the text what the upshot of the competition might be. And we saw that in the tenso the poet, in the first person, may interject his own extraneous eco-

nomic situation into the poem’s principal, or at least initial, theme: boasting. I can agree, then, with Kohler and with Jauss only insofar as the lyric

gap is concerned. It never formed a constitutive genre. ‘The epic or narrative gab, as manifested in the Voyage, is quite another matter, for it displays

characteristics that make it worthy of being recognized as a generic structure. I discern the following characteristics of the gab as it is embedded within the narrative of the Voyage: (1) a tripartite, albeit loose, form; (2) repeated syntactic structures, with emphasis on the future forms of veoz7;

(3) the boast itself, which is presented as the invention of an individual; (4) spareness of figurative imagery (e.g., metaphor, metonymy), which is replaced by images of prowess tending toward the hyperbolic; (5) a narrative situation that includes (a) a banquet setting (the evening meal), (b) a potential enemy, who may be represented by a delegated contestant, and above all (c), an outcome related in the text itself, the boast’s consequences, which may constitute a threat to life and limb.

From this embedded form we can extract the more general characteristics of the epic gab, first by eliminating the features that are specific to the Voyage de Charlemagne, that is to say, those described in point (2) above.

I will attempt in the following chapters to identify in narrative works the remaining traits, namely tripartite structure (so frequent as to be commonplace in medieval narrative), the ingredients of the boast itself, a

paucity of studied metaphor in the content, and the situation, toward identifying which of these works might be categorized as gabs. The goal of this inquiry is to explore the processes of generic creativity, without necessarily trying to assign to “gab” the same generic weight as is accorded traditionally accepted genre terms, such as “theater,” “novel,” or “Arthurian romance.” I strive to provide, rather, a hypothesis of generic creativity and transformation.

4 The Voyage de Charlemagne as Gab

IF THE GABIS INDEED AN AUTONOMOUS literary genre, one that remained gen-

erally unacknowledged until the second half of the twentieth century, what works belong to it? The title of this chapter suggests my thesis: that the Voyage de Charlemagne is the first and finest example of a genre, or subgenre, that I will label as “gab.” The suggestion is not as radical, or original,

as it might at first seem, for Bédier long ago hinted, in discussing the fabliaux, that the gabet might be considered a genre, while Aebischer twice labeled the Voyage “un ris et un gabet” (VN, 9, 161), and Favati (79-80) wondered if he would be justified in calling it outright a gab.'! Medieval concepts of classification varied from the extremely fluid, as in, say, the lack of overt distinction between romance and epic (the narrator of the romance of Partonopeu de Blois, for example, claims to sing a geste’) to the complex 'In the jongleurs terminology gabet found a place alongside bourde, trufe, and risee as a synonym for fabliau. See Joseph Bédier, Les Fabliaux, 33. ?"The word “geste” occurs in the fourteenth-century manuscript BnF fr. 368 and in the famous BnF fr. 19152, which was published in fascimile by Edmond Faral (Geneva,

1934). In the latter the narrator announces his change of meter from octosyllabic to dodecasyllabic with these words:

Ge qui ceste geste vos chant Vueil qu’an la fin voist amendant. ‘Tresqu’or ai si traite la lime Que chascuns couplés a sa rime.

Or la vos trairons par lons vers, |

Si vos deviserons par mers. Luevre en est costeuse et plus fort.

Cited in Anthime Fourrier, Le Courant réaliste dans le roman courtois au moyen age, 368.

99

TOO THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE notions of genre common among the troubadours and trouveres. Jauss’s observation that medieval authors lacked a canonical vocabulary by which they could categorize their creations is justified. Hesitation over its title and the debate over its interpretation show that the Voyage de Charlemagne has characteristics that defy easy classification.

Its incipit, “Ci comence le livere cumment Charels de Fraunce voiet in Jerusalem et pur parol[e]s sa feme a Constantinnoble pur ver roy Hugon,” inspired the lengthy modern title Voyage de Charlemagne a féerusalem et a Constantinople, first used by Paulin Paris (1859).? After some hesitation, Koschwitz adopted it for his editions (from 1879): Karls des Grossen Reise nach Ferusalem und Constantinopel, in abbreviated form Karlsreise. In Francisque Michel’s editzo princeps the poem bore the cryptic title Charlemagne,

which no subsequent editor of the poem retained;* Gaston Paris identified the poem in his studies by the more informative name La Chanson du Pelerinage de Charlemagne. ‘Yhereafter many considered that the poem had been sung, belonged to the epic genre, and had as its key action a religious

pilgrimage to the Holy Land, even though none of these points emerge indisputably either from the poem itself or from external evidence. Jules Horrent argued repeatedly in favor of retaining Gaston Paris’s denomination on the grounds that the trip depicted in the poem is indeed a pilerimage: “Le mot ‘voyage’ laisse de coté un des caractéres principaux de l’oeuvre.”*° Horrent rejected the incipit as a fourteenth-century scribe’s distortion of the poem’s true nature.®° Horrent condemned too the shorthand phrase “en Orient,” first favored by Coulet, then adopted by Neuschafer and Aebischer, but not, as he implied in his review, by Favati.’ In fact, as Horrent himself observed, “nul n’a jamais pensé . . . que Charlemagne accomplissait un pélerinage 4 Constantinople” (Vox Romanica, 312). Why, then, if unbiased identification of the poem’s contents is the main goal, should one mislead readers into believing that Charles made a sincere pilgrimage to Constantinople, even if the argument that he stopped over in Jerusalem for reasons of piety were acceptable? The poem’s exceptional qualities and the multitude of interpretations it has attracted lead me to plead for the adoption of Favati’s concise, simple, uncommitted title Voyage de Charlemagne.

>The incipit is printed in editions by Koschwitz, Favati and Picherit. For Paulin Paris, see Horrent, Explication, 9 n. 5. * Cited by Horrent, Explication, 9 n. 3: “Charlemagne,” an Anglo-Norman Poem of the Twelfth Century (London, 1836). > See Explication, 9 n. 1, and Horrent’s review of Favatt’s edition, CCM 12, 165. 6 See his review of Aebischer’s study in Vox Romanica 28:312. 7CCM 12, 165.

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB IOI Horrent’s dense summary of the interpretations applied to this poem verifies its status as a masterpiece and supplies important material from a wide range of scholarly perceptions toward a determination of its genre.* The features that distinguish the Voyage are so obvious that we often ignore them: (1) Its length: what other epic, or even romance, is so short? To find narratives of comparable brevity one must resort to the /ai, the fabliau, or one of the early episodic branches of the Roman de Renart. (2) Its alexandrine line: the dodecasyllable at this early date may signal the author’s attempt to distinguish the poem from the chanson de geste. Significantly, the 12-syllable line often occurs in poems in which boasting is prominent, or in which echoes of the gab occur: Fierabras, Galien le Restoré and its continuations, the poems of the Voeux du paon cycle. (3) It lacks not only scenes of general battle, but even the individual combats necessary to epic and romance alike.

(4) Absent, too, is the planctus, although the poem shares this distinction with a few epics.”

(5) Its narrator only addresses the audience directly three times, and he never exhorts it to pay attention with the typical “Oiez, segnor!” or similar epic formulas.!° In two of these instances he calls the audience’s attention to Hugon’s palace:

Li uns esgardet l’altre ensement en riant Que ¢o vus fust viarie que tut fussent vivant. 360-611! ® See Explication, 11. Tyssens and Caulkins repeat Horrent’s meticulous condensation of scholarship, the latter without giving credit to source. Sara Sturm’s brief but percep-

tive essay on “The Stature of Charlemagne” should be appended to Horrent’s compendium, and Picherit adds an up-to-date survey in his edition (88-92). See Madeleine Tyssens, trans., Le Voyage de Charlemagne a férusalem et a Constantinople, v—vi; Janet H. Caulkins, “Narrative Interventions: the Key to the fest of the Pélerinage de Charlemagne,” 47; Sara Sturm, “The Stature of Charlemagne in the Peélerinage.” ° Duggan lists the Couronnement de Louis, Prise d’Orange, Charroi de Nimes, Siége de Barbastre, and Moniage Guillaume, all lacking the planctus. See Joseph J. Duggan, The Song of Roland: Formulaic Style and Poetic Craft, 183.

10 Rychner finds that the majority of his restricted corpus begin with this type of exhortation (La Chanson de geste, 10-12). The Roland and the Voyage are exceptions, while the fragmentary Gormont et Isembart lacks a surviving prologue. Caulkins, in her essay “Narrative Interventions,” confuses narrator with author and fails to define her concept

of intervention, and thus she ignores true interruptions by mixing narration, 1.e., vécit, with editorializing. 11 As observed earlier, all quotations are drawn from Picherit’s edition of the Voyage unless otherwise noted.

102 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Celes imagines cornent, l’une a l’altre surrist, Que ceo vus fust viarie que il fussent tuz vis. 373-74

The third address occurs only ten lines from the end and consists in a rhetorical question, a topos of brevity such as is so often used in transition or to end either a description or the narration of an event:!? Que vus en ai jo mes lunc plait a acunter? (860)

The tight-lipped narrator not only intervenes rarely but keeps his audience in constant suspense, in contrast with the narrator of the Oxford Roland, who interrupts his story more frequently (every 105 lines on the average, by my count, or about as often as Chrétien de Troyes in his early works), and who blatantly announces the tragic outcome of the battle of Roncevaux:

Deus! Quel dulur que li Franceis nel sevent! AOI (Roland, |. 716)”

The exclamation anticipates the result of the impending ambush that Ganelon has prepared. The narrator of the Oxford Roland discloses that Gautier del Hum will descend from his mountain post only after battle has been joined: Gaulter desrenget les destreiz e les tertres. N’en descendrat pur malvaises nuveles Enceis qu’en seient .VII.C. espees traites. (Il. 809-11)

His interruption disrupts the time sequence in an apparent attempt to heighten the tension, but in the process he loses all claim to suspense. And he tampers with time once again by proclaiming Ganelon’s treachery before the characters learn of it: Guenes li fels en ad fait traisun. _— (1. 844)

He pities Charles’s sorrow in a rhetorical question, then discloses in detail the event with which the poem ends: '2 See John L. Grigsby, “Narrative Voices in Chrétien de Troyes,” 271. '3 All citations from the Roland are from Brault’s edition unless otherwise indicated.

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 103 Karles li magnes en pluret, si se demente. De co qui calt? N’en avrunt sucurance. Malvais servis le jur li rendit Guenes Qu’en Sarraguce sa maisnee alat vendre. Puis en perdit e sa vie e ses membres, E] plait ad Ais en fut juget a pendre, De ses parenz ensembl’od lui tels trente

Ki de murir nen ourent esperance. AOI (I. 1404-11)

In contrast, the author of the Voyage surprises us (and surely his own public) with dramatic scenes such as the Jew’s conversion and the crisis of the gabs, while his narrator never reveals the dénouement either of an episode

or of the story itself. We suspect from the beginning, but cannot know until the end, that Charles will prove to be the greatest emperor (in reputation and in physical stature).!* Rather than commenting on characters, as does the Oxford narrator with Ganelon and Naimon (I. 775), among others, the narrative voice in the Voyage portrays Hugon ambiguously, perhaps even misleading the audience with the words: “Sages fud et membrez,

mais plains de maleviz” (1. 438). Hugon seems to be innocent and well intentioned when he asks his spy if Charles will remain his friend (according to Aebischer), and even more so in Koschwitz’s understanding of |. 624: “QOjistes les parler s’il remandront a mi?” He cordially inquires, if we admit this reading, whether Charles intends to accept his invitation to remain in Constantinople a while longer. As the plot advances, we wonder with Horrent if the joyous knights will meet with disaster: “Le public se demande

si la farce ne va pas tourner au drame. Le poéte le tient en haleine avec Phabileté d’un homme de métier” (Explication, 81). Mais quel métier? ‘The

strategy of suspense fits more the trade of the writer, like Chrétien de Troyes, rather than that of the jongleur-composer of the Roland, or even of the glib storyteller in Béroul’s Tristan, whose chattiness and biased predictions have led some to call him a jongleur.'° ‘The métier is more that of a

free-spirited creator than of a conformist to “rules.” The refusal of the narrator of the Voyage to moralize (surely his reserve was intended), or to identify his attitude toward the characters, may be in part responsible for the spectrum of critical reactions that Horrent documents. Neuschafer was '4 Sara Sturm’s witty demonstration of “The Stature of Charlemagne” is difficult to refute. 15 This version was accepted by Favati and subsequently by Picherit. ‘6 By my count, the interventions of Béroul’s narrator are among the most frequent in romance, about once every 50 lines.

IO4 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE struck by the lack of sermonizing in the poem’s opening lines.'’ Indeed the introductory situation begins at the beginning, not im medias res as in the Roland or the epics of antiquity. The poem begins in Charles’s court, just as four of Chrétien’s five romances start off in King Arthur’s court. The plot proceeds in linear fashion, with the possible but momentary exception of Charles’s claim to have dreamed three times of his pilgrimage: La Croiz et le Sepulcre voil aler atirer: Jo l’ai trei feiz sunged, moi i covent aler, (Il. 70-71)

I prefer, with Neuschafer, to disbelieve the character, for the narrator adds no comment to direct our belief, and the author provides Charles’s inner thoughts when he includes in the emperor’s reason for his trip the following remark:

Irrai un rei requerre, dount ai oi parler. (1. 72) Thus the plot remains linear. The initial situation appears to be serious, as Neuschafer hints in his interpretation of the opening scene: “Der H6rer (oder vielleicht auch schon Leser) hat hier Verse vor sich, die sich in keiner Weise von den Anfangen der Chansons de Geste unterscheiden” (82): Un jur fu li reis Karles al Seint Denis muster; Reout prise sa corune, en croiz seignat sun chef, E ad ceinte s’espee dunt li ponz fud d’or mer. Dux i out et demeines, baruns e chevalers. (Il. 1-4)

Neuschafer may be correct in identifying the situation as serious, but he errs ever so slightly in claiming that the beginning differs in no way from that of the typical chanson de geste. The absence of a jongleur’s introduction,

the plunge into an initial conflict, the first words, all are atypical. The Voyage is quite distinctive in its neat inception. Surely its earliest audiences greeted the Voyage de Charlemagne with surprise, perhaps even with dismay. It was “like” a chanson de geste, but at the same time it was not an epic.'® Such a reception, if my conjecture is correct, '7 Hans-Jorg Neuschafer, “Le Voyage de Charlemagne en Orient als Parodie der Chanson de Geste,” 86. '8 Isabel de Riquer recognizes that the Voyage fails to coincide with our concept of the chanson de geste (La Peregrinacién de Carlomagno).

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 105 continues to this day, thus explaining the variety of critical reaction recorded by Horrent and summed up by Bates: “Now, in the last analysis what is this amazing poem which could be—and still can be—so many things to so many people?”!’ His answer was to label the poem “baroque,” a term that was becoming fashionable in his day, and that for its advocates meant a blending of disparates. In fact, Bates’s comment restates attributes of a literary masterpiece. ‘Genre’ came into its own as a literary term in English in rg1o0, while

in French it retains much of its earlier meaning of ‘type, kind’, whether applied to literature or not.’° In the Middle Ages a sense of genre appears to have been most prevalent among authors of lyric poetry, although some well-known comments by medieval authors spring to mind concerning the classification of narrative. Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube divided the epic into “trois gestes en France la garnie [dont celles] des rois de France est la plus seignorie.”?! Thus songs in the Charlemagne cycle ranked highest in pres-

tige even into the thirteenth century. I will return to the question of Charles’s loftiness shortly, but let us continue our glance at the medieval conception of genre. Jauss, citing from an early branch (ca. 1176) of the Roman de Renart, distinguishes a consciousness of the romances of antiquity, Breton romance, fabliau, chanson de geste, and fable: Seigneurs, of avez maint conte, Que maint conterre vous raconte Conment Paris ravi Elaine, Le mal qu'il en ot et la paine, De Tristan que la Chievre fist, Qui assez bellement en dist Et fabliaus et chancons de geste. Romanz d’Yvain et de sa beste Maint autre conte par la terre. Mais onques n’oistes la guerre, Qui tant fu dure de grant fin, Entre Renart et Ysengrin.

(Branch I, ll. 1-12)”

'? Robert C. Bates, “Le Pelerinage de Charlemagne: A Baroque Epic,” 22-24. 0 On ‘genre’ in English, see René Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature, 3d ed., 307 n. 8. 21 Girart de Vienne par Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube, ed. Wolfgang G. van Emden, Il.

II, I2.

22 Le Roman de Renart, ed. Jean Dufournet and Andrée Méline, 1:206.

106 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Jean Bodel, working in the last third of the twelfth century, classified the subject matter of narrative, Jauss recalls, according to its relative truthfulness:??

Li conte de Bretaigne s’il sont vain et plaisant Et cil de Romme sage et de sens aprendant, Cil de France sont voir chascun jour aparant. (Il. g-11)4

Thus the Breton romances are useless but amusing. ‘The romances of antiquity are edifying and, it is understood, not necessarily true. ‘The tales of France, the chansons de geste, including Jean Bodel’s own song celebrating Charles’s conquest of Saxony, continue to spread the truth. This slim evidence hints, then, that when Charles held the role of protagonist in a chanson de geste, his position was expected to be exalted, lofty,

respected, and serious. If modern critics are persuaded not only by the above testimony but by most of the surviving chansons de geste that Charles should be regarded as a hero, not a buffoon, we can forgive Paris, Bédier,

Coulet, Panvini, and others who saw in the Voyage a glorification of the French warrior, a celebration of the deposit of sacred relics in the churches of France, or a sermon against sin. But if we observe that the Charles of the Voyage is laughable, that the poem lacks grandiose battles, that its narrator winks at his audience as he prolongs the suspense, and that its form deviates from a standard, must we not admit that the poem is no chanson de geste at all?

Is Charles laughable? From the outset is portrayed a monarch who is vain, sensitive about his person, and insensitive to others. In the first scene,

Charles, so serious, so grandiose in appearance, brags about his elegant demeanor. His very first words are: “Dame, veistes unkes hume nul desuz ceil, Tant ben seist espee ne la corone el chef? Uncor cunquerrai jo citez ot mun espez!” (Il. g—11)

23 FHans-Robert Jauss, “Littérature médiévale et théorie des genres,” 94. 24 Fean Bodels Saxenlied, ed. F. Menzel and E. Stengel, 100:29. 25 T have added a comma in I. g after “dame,” which seems to have been erroneously omitted in the edition. Picherit’s reading otherwise follows Favati’s. Koschwitz emended to: “Dame, veistes onques rei nul dedesoz ciel”; Aebischer to “Dame, veistes unkes hume dedesuz ceil.”

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 107 When his wife, either naively or irritated by such vanity, replies with her own boast about a king whose bearing is more appealing, Charles’s reaction is intense. Worried about his standing in the eyes of his barons, his next words are: “E, dame, u est cil reis? Kar vus le m’enseinez! Si porterum ensemble les corunes as cheis; Si 1 serrunt vos druz e tuz vos cunsilers; Jo maunderai ma court de mes bons chevalers. Si Franceis le me dient, dunc lur otri jo ben. (Il. 19-23)

Charles had initially addressed his question to his wife alone, but now he proposes opening up the judgment to the entire court; public opinion will remove any doubt about the superiority of the emperor’s personal bearing. His wrath is so great that he threatens to decapitate his distressed wife unless she discloses the adversary’s name: Trencherai vus la teste od m’espee d’acer. (I. 25)

This is the identical punishment with which Charles will be threatened when Hugon learns of the emperor’s own boasts in Constantinople. After a second threat to have her head cut off, the queen “remembers” the perhaps imagined rival, whom she could not think of moments earlier. But Charles’s anger does not subside; he mentions the possibility of execution a third (I. 52) and a fourth (I. 55) time. He is irate: “Par ma fei,” dist li reis, “mult m’aveiz irascud.” (l. 53) There can be no doubt that the real motivation for the journey is Charles’s vain desire to prove that he carries his crown better than any monarch in the world. The author spends some fifty-seven lines detailing this cause, and only four on the religious purpose: En un lointain réaume, si Deu pleist, en irrez Jerusalem requere, la terre Damnedeu. La Croiz et le Sepulcre voil aler aiirer: Jo lai trei feiz sunged: moi 1 covent aler. (ll. 67-71)

But even in this passage the primary motivation is implied. For to satisfy his own boast, he requires that his barons, who have just heard the wife’s

108 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE comment, should witness the imperial contest between himself and Hugo (Il. 22). Thus in I. 67, zvrez, not irrai, comes to Charles’s lips. And in |. 72, as we saw earlier, Charles lets slip, almost as an aside, that he wants to see

another king that he happens to have heard about. The pilgrimage is, Neuschafer correctly observed, a thin camouflage for the real purpose of the trip (86). Besides, Charles never visits either the Holy Sepulcher or the Cross in Jerusalem, as Gaston Paris noted long ago. Therefore the narrator’s claim at the poem’s end that forgiveness comes from Charles’s having

worshipped the Sepulcher is a shallow afterthought, inconsistent with the primary aim that preoccupies the emperor throughout the poem.

Charles is laughable in Jerusalem. There, like an ignorant country bumpkin still insensitive to his surroundings, he has the gall to sit down, the Twelve Peers following like sheep, in the “high seat” of the thirteen chairs arranged conspicuously around the altar of a stunningly magnificent church with marble walls and painted vaults. Heinermann and Aebischer agree that this scene lacks solemnity. In their view the poet portrays the event so naively that it leaves the impression of “Scherz und Ironie” and fails to place the French in a sacred atmosphere.*° Aebischer laments: “C’est

dire que cette scéne, si belle qu’elle ait semblé 4 Gaston Paris, est bien plutét d’un comique assez triste, au fond: c’est une pitrerie, une de ces pitreries dont on ne sait s’il faut en rire ou en pleurer” (VN, 162). Obviously, one must /augh. Il faut en rire. Heinermann and Aebischer imply that

the poet fails to construct the scene he intended. In fact he succeeds in creating a laughable situation, consistent with the smile that permeates the entire poem. The character he creates is either ignorant or arrogant, but certainly not angelic. Charles, whose vanity reaches far, might be expected to have recognized the obvious configuration of the Last Supper and, being in the very location of the Passion, to have known that sacred objects were at hand. After all, he had professed an intention to view the Holy Sepulcher and the Cross (1. 70). But even if he failed to recognize the obvious, he disdained the warning signs around the chair in which Christ celebrated the first mass: Deus i chantat la messe, si firent li apostle; Et les XII. chaeres i sunt tutes uncore: La trezime est en mi, ben seelee et close.

(Il. 15-17) If Charles did perceive the importance of the Holy Seat, by the act of sitting in it he was comparing himself with Christ, as the Jew’s reaction proves. If he was simply awed by the church, a bit tired after his long land journey, 26 "Theodor Heinermann, “Zeit und Sinn der Karlsreise,” 556.

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 10g he resembles any modern-day tourist who fails to observe propriety in holy

places by sitting in antique chairs or on tombstones. The Holy Seat, the poet makes it quite explicit, is “ben seelee et clos,” sealed off and closed, “interdit aux profanes,” in Horrent’s words (Explication, 34 n. 2). Bates wonders “if the twelve little chairs and the one great one “all closed about’ might not have presented a picture particularly clear to anyone familiar with the ‘Last Judgment’ on the west front of St Denis, still so new in 1150.”’7 After Bates, Alfred Adler and E. Jane Burns rely on the coincidental representation of the Last Supper on the west facade of Saint-Denis to argue that the poem repeats the conventional seriousness of didactic sculpture, despite the consistent flow of information generously offered by the poet to the contrary.”* Burns insists that the text portrays kingly power in the abstract “through a minimum of physical displacement” (179) and freezes “medieval kingship in a glorified gesture” (180), all the while betraying her instinctive hesitation to ratify the poem as an epic. Why else would she feel obliged to note, as if it were universal knowledge, that it is “strikingly unconventional” (179)? One need not suppose that Charles or the poet had to be alive in 1150 or living in the outskirts of Paris to realize the significance of the setting. he poet makes Charles laughable, and if he lingers a moment on the beauty of the church, long enough to inspire appreciation of the Orient’s wonders, he cuts short any such sentiments by bringing on the amazed Jew, to whom Charles, in his usual insensitivity to others, remains oblivious. The Jew’s trembling, his rapid departure, skipping up the marble steps to the patriarch’s office, his sputtered request to break out the baptismal fonts for a hurried conversion to Christianity, all disperse any feelings of solemnity and return the audience hastily to the poems’s prime emotional response: laughter.

Even though the patriarch seems almost as stunned as the Jew by Charles’s audacity in pushing aside the ropes surrounding the Holy Seat and the nonchalant manner in which the Peers occupy the Apostles’ chairs, his rush to don the appropriate vestments and his impulsive decision to add Magnus to Charles’s name caricature the deep respect shown the great Emperor in the opening lines of the Roland: Carles li reis, nostre emperere magnes, Set anz tuz pleins ad estet en Espaigne: Tresqu’en la mer cunquist la tere altaigne. (Il. 1-3) 27 See Bates, 33, and cf. Favati, 149 n. 117. 28 Alfred Adler, “The Pélerinage de Charlemagne in New Light on Saint-Denis”; E. Jane Burns, “Portraits of Kingship in the Peélerinage de Charlemagne.”

110 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE In this setting the emperor appears awesome, because he has battled hard for years and conquered Spain all the way to the sea. Horrent’s notion that in the Voyage nothing sacrilegious has occurred is doubtless correct, but to claim that Charles might be expected to take Christ’s seat because he was “a Deo coronatus magnus et pacificus imperator” fails to explain the character’s naive vanity. Charles’s actions are indeed far less excusable than Perceval’s constrained behavior in the Grail Castle. Charles’s remarks when he first speaks to the patriarch point up his egocentricity: Duze reis ai cunquis par force et par barnez; Li trezime vois querre, dunt ai oi parler; (Il. 152-53)

but his self-assuredness is challenged when he encounters the marvelous city of Constantinople, and most critics agree that he is comical when he is forced to drop to the floor by the force of the rotating palace: Karles vit le paleis turneer et fremir: Il ne sout que ceo fud, ne |’out de luign apris. Ne pout ester sur pez, sur le marbre s’asist. Franceis sunt tuz verset, ne se pGent tenir. (ll. 385-88)

Because Charles sits down in face of the new phenomenon, Favati (24) and Horrent (Explication, 59) believe that he remained master of himself during

this crisis, but the Italian scholar justifiably insists that the emperor has found himself in a ridiculous position. Charles appears to be just as fearful as the French, who have covered their heads like terrified children (1. 389),

when he desperately responds to Hugon’s comforting words with “Will this ever end?”: Ne serrat ja mais el? (1. 396). Favati views Charles’s behavior as boorish, and as the exact opposite of the emperor’s comportment in Jerusalem: “Puo non essere ridicolo, ma é in posizione indecorosa e si comporta come un cafone; ed é in ogni modo I’esatto contrario del grande Carlo Magno che si asside sul trono di Cristo” (24). On the contrary, there is no inconsistency in the character. Both times he is concerned about his own situation as he absorbs blissfully the magnificent beauty surrounding him in the church of the Last Supper and, even in Hugon’s rotating palace, seems to ignore the French as he looks up to Hugon for comfort. Is he acting as a leader or is he making the inquiry for himself alone? That we can even ask such a question proves once again that the taciturn narrator

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB III portrays a character of dubious sensitivity, for in the Roland we are given a precise account of the emperor’s emotional state when his men are in danger. After Roland’s horn is heard, twice the narrator informs us of Charles’s anger: “Li empereres cevalchet par irur” (1. 1812); “Par grant irur chevalchet li reis Charles” (1. 1842); and after Roland’s death: “Tiret sa barbe cum hom ki est iret” (1. 2414). As befits his status (and his ego), Charles hastens to pronounce the first gab:

E lur dist Carlemaines: “Ben dei avant gabber.” (1. 453) But when Hugon threatens to execute them, and he finally grasps his peril, he does not hesitate to implicate his men by casting a glance toward them: Quant |’entent l’emperere, si se creinst de sa vie, E regardet Franceis, les feres compaignies .. . (Il. 648-49)

He quickly tries to exonerate himself by shifting the blame elsewhere: If he drank too much wine, it was in part due to Hugon’s excessive lavishness: “Asez nus en donastes” (I. 653). ‘Telling tall stories at bedtime is, he says, an institution back home (1. 654). The French (his men) are prone to play-

fulness: :

Quant Franceis sunt culchiez, que se giuent et gabent, E si dient ambure et saver et folage. (Il. 655-56)

Then Charles realizes the gravity of the situation and takes his barons into council. The hasty prayers, the prostration before the relics, and the appearance of the angel, who treats Charles like a naughty child, add to his laughability. This angel’s reprimand is a far cry from the respectful and comforting voice of the Saint Gabriel who, in the Oxford Roland, comes to Charles’s aid after Baligant has dealt him a nearly mortal blow: Carles cancelet, por poi qu’il n’est caiit, Mais Deus ne volt quwil seit mort ne vencut. Seint Gabriel est repairet a lui, Si li demandet: “Reis magnes, que fais tu?” (Il. 3608-11)

I12 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Help from heaven saves the day in both the Roland and the Voyage, but almost backfires in the latter as the waters, in their rising around Hugon and the citizens of Constantinople, also threaten the French. Charles, who can speak with angels, fears death like any mortal man, observes Favati (27). Charles undoubtedly loses heroic status when he and the barons flee before the watery menace. Favati, Aebischer, and Picherit agree that the text has the French being forced to climb a tree rather than taking refuge on a nearby hill: Desur un pin antif est li reis Carlemaines, Il et li duze per et les gentes cumpaines; Oit lu rei Hugun sus en la tur deplaindre: (Il. 783-85) Koschwitz, Tyssens, and an occasional scribe in the cycle of Galien le Restoré emended pzn in |. 783 to puz ‘hill’, but the Welsh translator of the Hengwrt

version, Aebischer, Favati, and Picherit have preserved the reading of the British Museum manuscript.” Aebischer (94) argued for pin on the grounds that only a few minutes after the waters recede the French and the Greeks meet under a tree: Des or put ben li reis jus de la tur decendre, E vent a Carlemaine desuz l’umbre d’une ente: (Il. 794-95)

Favati (26), relying on the Norse translations, reasoned that Koschwitz’s emendation was unjustified and that it was too easy to pass from pin to pui, citing Francisque Michel’s transcription to support his view. Above all, the word pin, provided by the manuscript itself, corresponds to the comic nature of the event. Favati has expressed it best: “Non sembra dunque legittimo alcun ragionevole dubbio: il grande Carlo e i prodi suoi pari sono finiti come bertucce sopra i rami di un pino” (26). They are indeed “monkeys up a tree.” Favati must be given credit, too, for his alert observation that Charles had surreptitiously stashed away his crown in his baggage (16). With typical conceit, Charles, after obtaining Hugon’s vassalage, exclaims: “Ore estes vus mis heoms, veant trestuz les voz; Hui devums faire feste, barnage et grant deport, 29 See Campeu Charlymaen in Selections from the Hengwrt MSS, trans. Robert Williams,

ed. G. Hartwell Jones, 2:448.

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 113 E porterum ensemble les corunes a or. Pur la vostre amistet prest sui la meie en port.” (Il. 803-6)

The golden crown survived the trans-European trek, the visit to Jerusalem, and the flood waters of Constantinople because Charles made sure it would be handy when he needed it. Not only does Charles lack the loftiness of an epic hero, so also do the Twelve Peers. Roland’s thunderous breath represents a come-down from the grandiose laments on his o/zfant in the Oxford Roland to the mustacheburning and door-blasting in the Voyage. He is no longer a tragic person-

ality, but a clown. The austere archbishop Turpin has become a circus performer, while Olivier descends to acts of sexual prowess, despite the attempts by scholars and later medieval writers (of Galien, Roncesvalles, etc.)

to rehabilitate his status. Olivier uses Hugon’s daughter to satisfy his pride and his lust, but when her usefulness has passed and she has fallen in love with him, he spurns her pleas and departs for his homeland without her.

The heroes have become buffoons, and therefore the poem is not a chanson de geste. But if not in that genre, where shall we classify it? That it is a parody has been frequently proposed, and with many strong arguments. The Voyage relies heavily on epic procedures, in fact on lines seemingly borrowed from the Chanson de Roland. Favati’s close comparison shows that the Voyage is a calco, molded on the Oxford Roland. Aebischer, persuaded by his study of the Norse translations that an earlier, serious version of the poem existed, claims that the Voyage is “une parodie d’un poéme que nous

n’avons plus” (VN, 161). Walpole considered it “an irreverent outburst [profaning] all that is sanctified in the Descriptio’s sanctimonious fraud.”*° In their opinions it is a parody of a particular piece, rather than of French epic legend generally as Bédier suggested, as had Moland, whose interpre-

tation is resuscitated by Neuschafer in a tightly-knit argument.’’ Neuschafer recalls that heroes from the cycle of Charlemagne and the William cycle are mingled, and he zeroes in on the poet’s use of high epic style in the portrayal of ignoble conduct, i.e., the pronouncement of the insults in the gabs (87). The epic formulas that the audience surely associated with grandeur fully contradict, he maintains, the rash behavior of Charles and the Peers (87). Horrent rejects, however, the classification of parody and insists repeatedly that the poem is “un simple conte a rire” (Explication 121, 30 Ronald N. Walpole, “The Pélerinage de Charlemagne: Poem, Legend, and Problem,” 183. 31], Moland, Origines littéraires de la France (Paris, 1862), 102, cited in Neuschafer, 94-

I14 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE 122) devoid of any “déformation burlesque des procédés courants de l’épopée” (111), a position very difficult to defend after Favati’s meticulous juxtaposition of the Roland and the Voyage. Horrent remained unconvinced by the Italian scholar’s work and criticized what he termed Favati’s neglect

of “la maniére plaisamment triomphale qui couronne le Voyage” (CCM 165).

For Horrent the poem remains epic in its subject: rivalry between two empires, the Western and the Eastern, but especially between France and Byzantium (Explication, 115). He refuses to believe that the principal adversarial relationship is between Charles and his wife, and that the city of Constantinople was chosen by the poet for its marvelous attributes rather than for historical reasons (cf. Favati, 60).*? The poem is epic, continues Horrent (115), by its ideology: “Le peuple frangais est l’élu de Dieu” (115 n. 2). Irue, God seems to favor Charles, but his angel reprimands him as a father berates a mischievous child, while the French seem to blunder their way to receiving the relics and escaping from Hugon’s wrath. God does not intervene to help Olivier accomplish his boast, even though the seducer has apparently received a promise from on high to help him fornicate, not once but a hundred times, with an innocent and defenseless maiden. (It is not her father Hugon who would save her from shame, and Charles remains silent on the matter.) One might overlook an individual warrior’s personal missteps, but it is difficult to square the notion of God’s help for such sin and the claim that the French remain his elect. No wonder Léon Gautier was scandalized by Olivier’s behavior, but perhaps if he had read the text less emotionally he would have been comforted that Olivier needed no help from above to secure the daughter's full cooperation.’

The poem is epic, too, maintains Horrent, because of its characters (115). They are, after all, the familiar heroes of the chansons de geste. But does their mere presence in the cast guarantee that the poem 1s epic? Favati, in his comparison to the archetypal chanson de geste, the Oxford Roland, comments in passing on the characters: “Che cosa rimane in tutto cio della Chanson de Roland? Né ci doveva rimanere niente: come ha distrutto la grandeur di Carlomagno, cosi il poeta distrugge la figura epica di Rolando facendogli usare in modi buffoneschi quello che pure era il segno della sua grandezza e del suo pathos [i.e., the olifant]. Non meno fa con Turpino” (48).

32 "The poet’s Constantinople, claimed Favati (62), could just as well have been a city in Provence or Italy, for the urban framework appeared to him to be Western and generic

(63). The essential for the poet was that Hugon’s realm (and he need not have been called Hugon) was a stupendously rich kingdom (65). 33 Gautier, Les Epopées francaises, 2nd ed., 3:15.

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 115 Neuschafer’s exhaustive effort to classify the Voyage as a parody is severely criticized by Horrent in an eight-point indictment of what he calls

its “faiblesses et contradictions.” Horrent dismisses the contention that Charles left for the Near East because of a non-epic family quarrel on the erounds that Neuschafer “n’a pas lu la |. 18, qui insiste sur le caractére public de l’altercation”(126 n. 1): Quant l’entend li reis Charles, mult en est curecez; Pur Franceis ki oirent, mult en est enbrunchez. (Il. 17-18)

The altercation has indeed become public, which is likely to be all the more damaging to the husband’s amour-propre. The queen’s teasing is not an affair of state but a comment on the king’s personal appearance. Had she voiced the criticism in private conversation, the king might have taken the trip anyway to satisfy his ego. Certainly his realm is not threatened, as it will be when he loses the ‘Twelve Peers. ‘The only thing at stake is his

physical bearing; in fact, merely whether his crown fits better than any other king’s:

Kaunt la met sur sa teste, plus belement lui set! (1. 16) Neuschéafer, it would seem, had indeed read line 18 and the preceding lines with care. Nothing in them proves that the motivation for the journey was anything other than a petty quarrel in which a husband’s ego was wounded. What the passage demonstrates, I insist, is that Charles’s concept of himself is so overblown that he takes seriously his wife’s playful remark, for she is

utterly shocked when she finds him to be so irritable: , Ja sui ge vostre femme, si me quidat jiier. (I. 33) But whether we accept Horrent’s or Neuschafer’s interpretation, once again

the narrator offers ambiguous guides to the understanding of the text, which is not at all the case in the typical chanson de geste. Horrent further accuses Neuschafer of failing to take into account the

cautions that the poet scatters throughout the work as hints that Charles should be viewed as a hero only temporarily ridiculed (Explication, 126 n. 1). The “scattering” consists of nine lines: 12, 122, 213, 438, 692, 789, 859, and 869-70. The first, like so many of the narrator’s other avertissements, may be interpreted in more than one way:

Cele ne fud pas sage, folement respondeit. (I. 12)

116 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE She is a bit foolish, not because the king is justified in his bragging (as Horrent apparently believes), but because she is about to put her own life in jeopardy. The narrator is announcing the peril of commenting on this vain emperor's stature. Horrent’s case is much stronger, however, in regard to line 122: Ainz nen 1 sist nuls hume, ne unkes pus uncore.

If no one had ever sat in Christ’s chair until that time, and no one has sat

in it since Charlemagne, one might surely claim that it was in a sense reserved for the emperor. Nothing, on the other hand, prevents the feeling that the man who pushed aside barriers to sit down and rest a little, as the text tells us (“un petit se reposet,” I. 120), possessed such audacity that no other mortal since then had the presumption to commit the same act. Horrent’s last bit of evidence mustered against Neuschafer’s argument for parody lies near the poem’s end: Le clou et la corune si ad mis sur |’auter, E les altres reliques depart par sun regnet. Iloec fud la reine, al pied li est caiee: Sun mautalent li ad li reis tut perdunet, Pur l’amur del sepulcre que il ad aiiret. (Il. 866—70)

This time the narrator alerts us that the king is in a pardoning mood, not because he forgives the queen, but because he has brought back the relics. What a contrast to the gloom at the close of the Oxford Roland: “Deus,” dist li reis, “si penuse est ma vie!” Pluret des oilz, sa barbe blanche tiret. (Il. 4000-4001)

The Charles of the Voyage has trrumphed, as Horrent claims, but he forgives the queen in egotistical celebration of his recent personal successes: the public proof that she was wrong about his stature, and his safe return with a trunkful of relics. Our “hero” is neither moved by Christian humility nor by the high pathos that motivates the Charles of the Roland. Favati is right in his contention that the king treats his wife like a slave or a servant, to be humbled at all costs. And if actions speak louder than words, one must observe the sequence of events in this last scene: only after the queen

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 117 has thrown herself at his feet does Charles pardon her. Finally, how explain

the hint that Charles forgives her for the sake of the Sepulcher that he worshipped, when no record of his visiting it is reported in the poem? Even though Horrent vigorously objects to the view that Charles is ridiculed and that the poem is a parody, he insists that it is comic and does not hesitate to compare its method to that of the farce (115) or to accept Lecoy’s label pochade, a hasty sketch, whose origin lies in “la fantaisie amusée d’un poéte qui ne croit pas a ce qu'il raconte et ne tient pas a ce que son public y croie” (116). Horrent’s quarrel with Neuschafer and Favati, then, concerns less the general nature of the poem than the characteriza-

tion of Charles, for he sees the emperor as triumphant and the French vindicated, while only Hugon is the target of ridicule. He forgets that the women earn even less respect than the emperor of Constantinople. In my opinion, the author allows no character to emerge unscathed, but almost all scholars agree (Coulet a major exception) that the poem relies on humor, fantasy, imagination, and exaggeration, even while the characters remain responsible for their acts of speech.*+ Favati holds, furthermore, that the gabs were uttered with naive innocence, and as proof of this notion he tenders Charles’s appearance the morning after, approaching the angry Hugon with an olive branch. Although the word “genre” is a late entry into the English language, as mentioned earlier, the need to classify literary works has always faced both authors attempting composition and audiences attempting to understand. In 1939 Benedetto Croce proclaimed in ironic protest the nonexistence of genres.?> More recently Genette has seriously questioned their reality.* Theorists quite expectedly become frustrated in their attempting to carve out niches for human productions that defy classification. Authors rely on the concept of genre, for by focusing on a type they can aim at a certain audience or hope to inspire certain emotions. Jauss proposes an intriguing chart of medieval genres based on the esthetic experience they might engender:

a) liturgical drama religious participation b) religious play need for spectacle / edification

c) legend surprise / emotion / edification

34’Though Panvini considers the poem serious, he recognizes the humor in it. See Bruno Panvini, “Ancora sul Pélerinage de Charlemagne,” 17-80, esp. 76-78; cf. Jules Coulet, Etudes sur Pancien poeme francais du “Voyage de Charlemagne en Orient.”

35 Croce’s comments at the Third International Congress of Modern Literary History at Lyon, May 1939, are reported by Jauss (“Théorie des genres,” 79 n. 1). 36 Gérard Genette, Introduction a Varchitexte.

118 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE d) chanson de geste admiration / pity e) symbolic poetry elucidation of meaning

f) romance pleasure in enigma, in the obscure

g) fabliau amusement / laughter

h) courtly lyric pleasure in formal variation?’ Using this guide, one might place the Voyage in a hybrid class of fabliaulegend, but not, significantly, in the category of chanson de geste. Literary historians and critics obviously profit also from classifications of genre as gauges of interpretation and appreciation. Genette contended that genres are created after, not before, the fact: “Toutes les espéces, tous les sous-genres, genres ou super-genres sont des classes empiriques, établies par observation du donné historique, ou a la limite par extrapolation

a partir de ce donné” (70-71). Lukacs, standing at the author’s vantage point, maintained that “Le principe ... créateur de genres n’exige aucun changement dans la disposition d’esprit; son rdle est bien plut6t de contraindre une seule et méme disposition a s’orienter vers une fin nouvelle.” Jauss simply reiterated that genres can be created either post rem or ante rem. What emerges from our look at comments on the nature of the Voyage is a twofold observation: (1) Critics are never sure how to classify the poem; (2) Unfailingly, critics notice something that makes the poem different from the chansons de geste. We can safely confirm that in the Voyage the existential attitude, the mental disposition, the “schéma imaginatif” (terms frequently used to label a genre, according to Genette, 72) are not those of the epic. Parody, burlesque, travesty, caricature, mock epic are all traditional terms that could legitimately be applied to the Voyage, but all are either ante or post medium aevum. Why not then revert to a term of the period, the gab, that not only describes precisely the genre of the Voyage but at the same time calls attention to its origins and reception? All of these terms except gab presume the existence of a previous work (see Aebischer, Walpole), or a genre (see Neuschafer, Morf), or a tradition (see Horrent, 123); an object to be parodied, mocked, or ridiculed. Since the choice of the term to describe the genre of the Voyage depends on the poem’ literary and social contexts, it is essential to come to a conclusion, however hypothetical it might be, on the date of its creation. The array of dates assigned by scholars to the composition of the Voyage de Charlemagne is breathtaking, ranging from no later than 1075 to the last

years of the thirteenth century. Heinermann constructed the following

37 Hans-Robert Jauss, “Littérature médiévale et expérience esthétique,” 322. 38 Georges Lukacs, La Théorie du roman, trans. Jean Clairevoye, 32.

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB IIgQ handy chart (copied by Panvini, 28), which I reproduce with additions to bring it up to date:%? 1. Abbé de la Rue (1834): first years of the twelfth century. 2. Francisque Michel (1836): same. 3. Paulin Paris (1859): before the First Crusade. 4. Louis Moland (1862): first half of the thirteenth century. 5- Gaston Paris (1865): twelfth century; (1875): about 1080. 6. Léon Gautier (1867): first third of the twelfth century; (1880): be-

tween II10-I120. 7. Eduard Mall (1873): twelfth century. 8. Eduard Koschwitz (1875): eleventh century; (1883 and afterwards): second half of eleventh or beginning of twelfth century. 9. Henri Morf (1884): before 1080.” 10. Karl Voretzsch (1901): after 1108; (1925): soon after 1109. 11. Ph. A. Becker (1907): about 1150. 12. Jules Coulet (1907): about the middle of the twelfth century. 13. Joseph Bédier (1913): after 1109. 14. Friedrich Schiirr (1926): after the Second Crusade. 15. Leonardo Olschki (1928): scarcely possible before 1150. 16. D. Scheludko (1933): probably not before 1130. 17. Heinermann (1936): shortly after the Second Crusade, say, 11491152.

18. Bates (1941) tends to accept unquestioningly Bédier’s proposals, as refined by Heinermann. 20. Adler (1947) follows Heinermann. 21. Lejeune (1954) follows Heinermann.*! 22. Walpole (1955) sees it as contemporary with the Roland, but surely after the Descriptio, dated 1095-1124 by Bédier, whose arguments Walpole accepts.

23. Frings (1957): after the canonization of Charlemagne in 1165, L.e., between 1165 and 1170. 24. Neuschafer (1959): same. 25. Bezzola (1960): 1060-1108.

3° "Theodor Heinermann, “Zeit und Sinn der Karlsreise,” 498-99. #0 Heinermann (498) attributed to Morf the suggestion of “um 1075,” which is not inaccurate, but Morf was willing to admit a broader period, as long as the terminus ad quem remains 1080. See Henri Morf, “Etude sur la date, le caractére et l’origine de la chanson du Peélerinage de Charlemagne,” 200.

+1 Rita Lejeune, “Role littéraire d’Aliénor d’Aquitaine et de sa famille.”

120 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE 26. Panvini (1960) finds Heinermann’s argument very attractive and relies on linguistic evidence to support the date of about 1148.

27. Horrent (1961) views the poet as a remanieur in the tradition of writing about Charles’s legendary journey that stretches from before the composition of the Chronicon by Benedict of Mount Soracte to the Roland and beyond (Explication, 123).

28. Aebischer (1965), in the introduction to his edition, calculates with tongue in cheek the median date of June 30, 1112 (29). 29. Favati (1965) ventures the extreme 1250-1300, with ingenious analyses.

30. Horrent (1969), reviewing Aebischer’s edition, exclaims that the precise timing matters little (“peu importe!” 314), but, in his criticism of Favati’s work, objects strongly to the extremely late date by adducing convincingly the derivative Galien li Restorés and the Norse translations. The poem, he shows, cannot have been composed after 1250 (CCM 12 [1969]: 168).

31. Horrent (1970) finds Heinermann’s dating the most attractive thus far proposed. 32. Duggan (1973) places it among those poems orally composed, thus early, about 1100. 33. Picherit (1984) is noncommittal but leans toward Bédier’s terminus a quo, concluding that the date was somewhere between 1109 and 1205. 34. De Riquer (1984) very cautiously accepts the first half of the twelfth century.

Let us scrutinize first those arguments favoring a twelfth-century composition. Although only a single song need have preceded the Voyage for it to be a parody of that song, it would seem more plausible that the wellconstructed contre-chant that critics see in the Voyage was inspired by an existing corpus of songs in the epic genre, accompanied by an experienced, or sated, public to appreciate the poem’s humor. So goes the reasoning (cf. Favati, 79). Neuschafer is, then, consistent with himself when he places the Voyage

in the second half of the twelfth century, for no one can doubt that the French epic had reached a peak of popularity, and was perhaps on the downside of the peak, rendering it vulnerable to attack by literary means. The German scholar’s arguments are persuasive: (1) The poem’s alexandrine versification would seem to be appropriate in the wake of Lambert le ‘Tort’s Roman d’Alexandre. (2) The epic world confronts the marvelous

fairytale city of Constantinople in a way that would hint that courtly romance was concurrently on the rise. (3) Heroes from different epic cycles are intermingled, which, Neuschiafer believes (disputing Gaston Paris’s al-

THE VOYAGE DE-CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 121 tered opinion to the contrary), presupposes that the cycles had reached an advanced stage of development (98). He then departs literature for history to conjecture that the canonization of Charlemagne was the inspiration for the poem.” In his view, the Voyage lampoons the emperor because the French poet betrays jealousy of German claims to the founder of France: “Sollten wir in der Karlsreise einen ironisch-kritischen Beitrag Frankreichs

zu der in Deutschland stattfindenden Heiligsprechung haben? ... Sein Werk ware dann auf die Jahre zwischen 1160 und 1175 zu datieren” (100—

ror). Aside from the anachronistic assumption that French and German nationalism were in existence, the claim that Charles’s canonization motivated the parody conjures up an authorial intention that may be beyond our ken. Neuschafer’s essay, nevertheless, is thought-provoking on two counts: (1) his suggestion (100) that the Karlamagnus saga could have served as a point of departure, which is consistent with the linkage to the Scandinavian tradition that is posited by other scholars; (2) its comparison of the Voyage to courtly romance, for behind this argument lies the assumption that the chanson de geste was changing and was perhaps in decline. (Cf. Jauss, “Theo-

rie des genres,” 86.) On the other hand, Neuschafer’s claim: “Diese Welt Konig Hugos.... hat vieles mit der Welt des héfischen Romans gemeinsam” (92) appears slightly exaggerated. Although Olivier utters a “Liebesgab” and is thrice called “corteis,” although a fairy is said to have bequeathed Hugon the bedcovers for his guest chambers (I. 431—a detail overlooked by Neuschafer), and although the palace rotates and is decorated with mechanical wonders, the mood in the Voyage lacks the enigmatic obscurity so essential to the marvelous in, say, the romances of Chrétien de ‘Troyes. I think of, for example, the complicity of nature in Yuain’s magic

fountain, the never-explained presence of the prophetic tombstone that Lancelot is able to lift, the secret of the grail which required decades of continuators to elucidate, or even the appearance of such a minor character as the Hideous Damsel in the same tale. ‘The key is contrast rather than Neuschafer’s “Gemeinsamheit.” Olivier’s behavior is far from courtly. ‘The

author may betray his own sympathy for women, but they are given no respect by the male protagonists, whereas courtly lovers often worship their ladies.* Love, especially of the courtly variety, seems to be inconceivable to Charles and the Peers. Nonetheless the French boast like courtly individuals rather than epic types. Vanity, individualism, personal responsibility are highlighted. Neuschafer labels these Carolingian heroes “Grobschlach* Neuschafer (100 n. 63) was inspired by Frings’s 1957 review of Aebischer’s Textes HOVVO!IS.

#3 See Favati’s sensitive analysis of the role of women in the Moyage.

122 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE tige Haudegen” (92), uncouth old swordsmen, still immersed in ancient watrior traditions and ill-prepared to meet the challenge of a changing order. His interpretation is, then, inextricably tied to dating, for the Voyage in his view has to be seen against the backdrop of courtly romance. Neuschafer implies that Charles and the Peers prefigure, or resemble, the seneschal Keu, that most famous of gabeors, who in the Arthurian world usually winds up in trouble because of his constant boasting and insulting.* However, Neuschafer’s argument loses force if the Voyage is set alongside Jean Bodel’s Chanson des Saisnes. Vhis veritable chanson de geste was doubtless

composed in the last third of the twelfth century, at precisely the epoch proposed by Neuschafer for the date of the Voyage. Its form is rhymed alexandrine verse, and its content has been patently influenced by courtly romance. Jean mixes epic themes, such as Charles’s campaigns against pagans and his struggles with rebellious barons, with budding love and secret trysts.© ‘The length (8079 lines), the rhyme, the content, an author who

| refuses to remain anonymous, all betray fashions later than those that distinguish the Voyage.

The date of composition eludes scholars despite Heinermann’s impressive display of erudition in favor of ca. 1150. His contention that the Voyage satirizes the crusade of Louis VII and its miserable failures has tempted a

number of scholars to join his camp. Nonetheless, an oral version of the tale may well have existed in the mid-eleventh century, the pre-Crusade era, which seemed to Paulin and Gaston Paris, followed by Henri Morf, the most probable moment of its creation. Memories of peaceful journeys to the East such as the one recounted in the Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta can explain the absence of any battle in the poem. The evidence suggests, as both Favati (43 n. 67) and Horrent (Explication, 123) admit, that belief in

a legendary journey of Charles to the Near East from which he returned with precious relics can be attested as early as 968. The oft-cited chronicle of Benedict, of the monastery of Saint Andrew on Mount Soracte, corroborates that a story circulated about such a journey. The truthfulness of the chronicle matters much less than the indisputable fact that it testifies to the existence of the legend as early as the late tenth century.* It was thus known by the time the Chanson de Roland was being sung. Duggan considers the Voyage, the Roland, and Gormont et Isembart among the earliest texts in his corpus, and “roughly contemporaneous” (Craft, 208). He suggests that 4 See Grigsby, “Le Gab dans le roman arthurien,” 260-63. 5 See Jean Bodels Saxenlied, ed. F. Menzel and E. Stengel, 2 vols. +6 Although Gautier and Coulet contended that Benedict invented the legend to support his monastery’s relics, most scholars accept Zucchetti’s reasoning that the Chronicon merely witnesses to the existence of the legend (VN, 114-20).

THE VOYAGEDE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 123 the Voyage was “probably written down shortly after the year 1100” (210 n. 7). The time when a work was written down can only suggest the time when it might have been created and become latent, which for the Voyage was certainly the eleventh century. In such an era—legends were being created, the genres to convey them were being developed—sub-genres, variations of genres, or competing genres must have sprung up simultaneously. If one pictures this society in which tales were delivered in speech or song, and perhaps composed extemporaneously (as suggested by Duggan and others), it takes little imagination to view the gab, which emerged in the Voyage, as one among competing genres, separate from the chanson de geste, which came to dominate the spectrum of narrative in the decades to follow. According to this scenario, the problems with parody vanish along with the notion that the Voyage was necessarily dependent on other works, or was a poem that was created after the chansons de geste, or even after the inception of the courtly romance. Consequently, it need not be supposed that the Voyage was a sarcastic and humorous reply to the Descriptio.*’ The Latin work, “étrange et pauvre”

(Bédier), a “sanctimonious fraud” (Walpole), may or may not have preceded the Voyage.** In Walpole’s view, the paucity of eleventh-century at-

testations to Charles’s legendary travels to the Holy Land indicates that the full-blown story related in the Voyage had not been formulated before the Descriptio. Walpole passes in review Benedict’s Chronicon (which he dates to 998), records from 1082 in the archives of Saint-Savior Abbey at Charroux (Poitiers), a brief asserting Charles’s gift of relics to St. Corneille of Compiégne dating from 1092, and Hugh of Fleury’s Historia Ecclestastica of 1110, and he concludes: “There is no sign [before the twelfth century], in ecclesiastical or literary documents, that the legend has anywhere acquired a scope like that of the version preserved in the Peélerinage” (181). But is it not as likely that the witty and successful Voyage inspired some somber cleric’s “official” reply as it is that the poet of the Voyage knew the Descriptio? Thus the monks of Saint-Denis could offer a respectful explanation not only of their ownership of the relics but also of Charles’s reasons for stopping over in Constantinople, for there, according to the Descriptio,

not Jerusalem, is where he obtained them. The fact remains that the Voyage’s comic version of Charles’s journey differs from all others in tone, and constitutes therefore the exception, while the Descriptio, although of+7 Descriptio qualiter Karolus Magnus clavum et coronam Domini a Constantinopolt Aquisgrani detulerit qualiterque Carolus Calvus hec ad Sanctum Dyonisium retulerit, ed. Gerhard Rauschen, 130ff.; Ferdinand Castets, “Iter Hierosolymitanum ou Voyage de Charlemagne

a Jérusalem et a Constantinople.” 48 Joseph Bédier, Les Légendes épiques, 4:122; Walpole, “Pélerinage,” 183.

124 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE fering a singular view of the events, shares in the seriousness that charac-

terizes Benedict’s Chronicon, Branch I of the Karlamagnus saga, Jean d’Outremeuse’s account in Li Myreur des Hystors, and the many texts in the cycle of Galien le Restoré. The Voyage also reflects the tranquillity of the days before the rise of the crusading spirit in the eleventh century, as ech-

oed in the travel stories of pilgrims. Nonetheless, internal evidence hints that the author of the Voyage may have indeed known the Descriptio, for his

catalogue of twelve (or thirteen) relics appears to be an expansion of the five in the Latin text. The Descriptio lists: (1) part of the Crown of Thorns including eight thorns, (2) a nail from the Crucifix, (3) the Holy Shroud, (4) a garment of the Virgin Mary, (5) St. Simeon’s arm (Castets ed., 46061). The Voyage poet retains these very pieces and adds the head of Lazarus, the blood of St. Stephen, the Chalice blessed by Christ, the silver plate and the knife used at the Last Supper, St. Peter’s beard and hair, and the milk with which the Virgin Mary nursed Jesus (Il. 164-187). It has been rec-

ognized (Horrent, Favati) that the holy objects relate to three topics: (1) saints, (2) the Passion, (3) the Virgin Mother. While valid for both the Descriptio and the Voyage, that classification may in fact be inevitable since most groups of relics could be so divided. One does note, however, that the expanded list stresses objects related to nutrition: blood, cup, plate,

knife, milk, as if to announce that the mouth is important: to eat, as to boast, one must use it.*? Scholars have long associated the Descriptio, Saint-Denis, the Lendit, and the Voyage. Even though the poet fails to mention the Lendit, whether it be the fair or the ceremony in which the relics were exposed, the association merits another look.°° The period in which the Voyage was conceived should provide a glimpse of the genre within which the creator was working. Since Bédier, it has been widely accepted that the Descriptio was composed before the Voyage. Because the Descriptio was apparently written to explain the presence of certain relics in the Abbey of Saint-Denis so that

the flocks could attend in good faith the exhibition of those relics (the Indictus), scholars have recognized the necessity of establishing the date at which this ceremony was inaugurated. Relying on Lebeuf, who in 1754 wrote that a fragment of the True Cross, borne directly from Jerusalem, arrived in Paris on August Ist, 1108, Bédier concluded that the fair was instituted in June of the following year, 1109. But Levillain has shown in a scrupulously researched essay that Lebeuf had in fact written a “petit roman des origines du Lendit qui a séduit de bons esprits,” among whom 49 See John L. Grigsby, “The Relics’ Role,” 32-33. 50 Tn the last lines of Fierabras the acquisition of relics by Charles is specifically linked to the Lendit.

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 125 was Joseph Bédier.*! Levillain demonstrated that the relics of the Passion were introduced into the Abbey of Saint-Denis much earlier, probably June 10, 1047, and that the religious ceremony, the Endit, was first celebrated on June 8, 1048 (275).*” As for the Descriptio, he persuasively suggests plac- | ing it between 1079 and 1095, and most likely about 1080. Hence, using his own logic, Bédier’s terminus a quo must be revised to thirty years earlier, setting it before the First Crusade, as Gaston Paris and Henri Morf argued over a century ago. Almost certainly the attitudes, “ideology,” and beliefs of both poet and audience would have noticeably changed between 1080 and 1109, in which period the Council of Clermont and the First Crusade intervened. The dependence of the Voyage on the Descriptio may be open to challenge, but the influence of the Oxford Roland on our poem seems inescapable. Favati, in an ingenious demonstration, suggested that the relics in

Roland’s sword appear to have been an inspiration for the poet of the Voyage, an opportunity for him to excercise the favored technique of “outdoing.”? In the Roland, the pommel of Durendal enclosed: La dent seint Perre et del sanc seint Basilie E des chevels mun seignor seint Denise, Del vestement i ad seinte Marie. (Il. 2346-48)

The Voyage steps up to a higher rank of relic, reasoned Favati (51-52). For

a mere tooth of Peter is substituted hair and beard. The blood of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, replaces the blood of St. Basil, Father of the Greek Church. (If Favati’s hypothesis is true, the Voyage poet missed an opportunity to link a relic with Greece, the country of the gabs.) St. Denis’s hair is jettisoned in favor of St. Peter’s. Once again a potential association for the Voyage is rejected in this reasoning, for one might have expected a souvenir of the patron of the abbey church where Charles’s trip begins and ends. Mary’s vestment is specifically, rather than generically, named in the Voyage: “De la sainte chemise que ele out revestut” (I. 189), and her maternal function is emphasized by the addition of her milk. Favati capitalizes on the triple division I mentioned earlier to show that three has

51 T. Levillain, “Essai sur les origines du Lendit,” 248. 52 Levillain distinguished among Lendit (the fair), Endit, both inside and outside the church, and the Champ du Lendit, the area where the fair was held. The interior Endit was instituted before the exterior. 53 Willard R. Trask’s translation of Ernst Robert Curtius’s ausbeten in European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, 162-65.

126 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE been multiplied by four to give the numerologically significant twelve. But Mary’s clothing is the only piece common to both the Voyage and the Roland, while the Descriptio seems to have bequeathed at least five relics to our poem. Favati detected in the Voyage a multitude of reminiscences of the Roland, which in the long run add credence to his demonstration. Perhaps the most

telling hint of dependence is the mention of the conquest of Constantinople in Roland’s planctus (1. 2329), which is a kind of gab itself, a tragic boast of past accomplishments. Scholars since Gaston Paris have singled out this allusion as a potential inspiration for, or justification of, the Voyage. But the reference to Constantinople demands scrutiny, for Roland claims to have conquered the famous city with his sword, a warlike feat consonant with other versions of Charlemagne’s journey but not with the peaceful acquisition recounted in the Voyage. In the other direction, the Voyage leaves evidence that the author did indeed know the Roland story, most notably in the second of two short laisses.** Charles answers the patriarch’s plea to protect Christendom from the Saracens: “Jo manderrai mes humes, quant qu’en purrai aver, EF irrai en Espaine, ne purat remaner.” Si fist il pus encore, ben en gardat sa fei, Quant la fud mort Rollant, li XII. per od sei. (Il. 229-32)

In this rare extradiegetic comment, the narrator predicts not the outcome of his own story but that of the Roland. This single outright reference to the Roland, with its textual problems, led Koschwitz at one point to consider

it a late interpolation and to eliminate it (Horrent, Explication, 48 n. 3). The absence would do no harm to the story line, and the reference is already doubly suspect, because the narrator intrudes rarely, and avoids the announcement of coming events. But even if these lines are a late addition, it is just about impossible to imagine the poem without Roland’s gab and its indisputable reminiscence of the olzfant. Since the Voyage poet obviously knew a version of the legend of Roncevaux, the next question to ask is which one? He never alludes to Ganelon or to Baligant. The sole direct reference he makes (Il. 229-32) is, further*4 The division into two laisses is Aebischer’s solution to the problem of assonances in these lines. Koschwitz had assumed a lacuna and considered the passage as a single laisse. See Koschwitz, ed., 66-68; Picherit, 78; Aebischer, ed., ll. 226-32; and Horrent, Explication, 48 n. 3.

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 127 more, to Charlemagne’s loss, not to his victory over the Saracens. But this in itself is enough to justify the reference’s inclusion in the Voyage, for the poet is certainly aiming at portraying Charles’s shortcomings as well as his (unwitting) triumphs. The slightness of his allusion to the Roland hints that he may have had in mind a version without the Baligant episode. His incorporation of epic heroes from cycles other than the “geste du roi” sug-

gests that the legend of Roland was in flux at the time of composition. Although scholars most often view the mixture as a sign of lateness (Neuschafer, Gosman, Heinermann), the argument of Gaston Paris (as early as 1880) and the emergence of the Nota Emilianense cast doubt on the validity of this judgment. Duggan implies that enough texts without the Baligant

episode have survived to justify the notion that a version of the Roland without it existed before the version contained in the Oxford manuscript: the Nota Emilianense, the Chronique du Pseudo-Turpin, the Lyon version, Garin de Monglane, the prose Galien (Craft, 70). In an admirably researched article, he proposes that the Baligant episode may have been added shortly after 1075, i.e., possibly within the same decade as the composition of the Descriptio.*> Farrier, in her attempt to date the Ro/and linguistically, detected

“vestiges of a tenth-century poem” wedged between generous portions of eleventh- and twelfth-century redactions.** Such clues hint at a period of active creativity at least as early as the last third of the eleventh century, a creativity that included the need to choose from the supply of raw materials available to the literary imagination. That choice applied not only to content (drawn from oral tales, ecclesiastic documents, and hearsay*’), but to the appropriate vehicle: a form, a genre. Favati has shown that the God portrayed in the Voyage acts as Charlemagne’s personal friend, and Horrent, in complete accord, referred to him as “le Dieu bonhomme du moyen 4ge” (Explication, 90), a conception of the deity that tallies with the Baligant episode rather than with the Roncevaux section of the Roland. In the Baligant episode, Charles is inevitably more frequently associated with God because the emperor is at center stage, while in the first 2400 lines he had remained in the background as 55 Joseph J. Duggan, “The Generation of the Episode of Baligant; Charlemagne’s Dream and the Normans at Manzikert,” 64. Duggan is at odds with Hans-Erich Keller’s opinion that the Baligant is a roman a clef (267) produced at the peak of creative activity centered at Saint-Denis in the 1140s. Keller dates the addition of Baligant between 1134 and 1144 (280). See “La Version Dionysienne de la Chanson de Roland.” °6 Susan Elizabeth Farrier, “A Linguistic Date of the Oxford Chanson de Roland,” Dissertations Abstracts International, 46:7 (Jan. 1986), 1936-A. See Olifant 10:4 (Autumn 1984—-Winter 1985), 216-17, for a summary of her 1985 Cornell dissertation.

, 57 Gaston Paris suggested that the poet’s knowledge of Constantinople came from a pilgrim who would have been his acquaintance.

128 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE the spotlight was focused on Roland. The famous favor that God accords Charles, the slowing down of the sun’s course, occurs after Roland has passed out of the picture (LL. 2458ff.). This event is a turning point in God’s role in the song, since before it occurs, he is a distant deity for the emperor

as well as for Roland. Examples: When Blancandrin reports Marsile’s promise to follow him to France, Charles pauses, extends his hands upward, and bows his head: Li empereres tent ses mains vers Deu, Baisset sun chef, si cumencet a penser. AOI (II. 137-38)

Roland prays to a remote God for his Peers, and never is granted a direct contact. [The angel Gabriel, a subordinate in the heavenly hierarchy, represents his communication with Paradise (ll. 2261ff.). God sends ambassadors, Gabriel, one of the Cherubim, and Michael, to collect the hero’s soul (Il. 2390ff.). These appear immediately after Roland has spoken his planctus, a dying boast. Coincidentally, in the Voyage, the angel descends to Charles after the boasting, so that here too the Roland may foreshadow our poem. The similarities between the Charlemagne section of the Roland and the Voyage suggest that both were conceived at about the same moment. An early date of conception can be argued on other grounds. The brevity of the Voyage relates it more to an episode (dare I say to a cantiléne?) in the Chanson de Roland than to a full-fledged epic poem. Measuring its 870 lines against the Roland shows consistent correspondence to that poem’s episodic divisions, with the notable exception of the Baligant section: 1. The Betrayal, 1-840 (840 lines); 2. The Combat, 841-1701 (860 lines); 3. The Defeat, 1702-2591 (861 lines).**

After this, the heart of the Roland section, comes the noticeably longer Baligant episode: 4. Baligant, 2592-3704 (1112 lines).

The finale ties up the loose ends: Aude’s death, the trial of Ganelon, Charles’s future: 5. Ending, 3705-4002 (287 lines). °8 These correspond closely to Moignet’s divisions in his school edition of the Roland.

THE VOYAGEDE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 129 Gaston Paris, who would not have objected to such a comparison, wrote also that the poem’s style “frappe irrésistiblement par son caractére archaique tout lecteur habitué a notre ancienne langue” (48). Although He1nermann argues on linguistic (and contextual) grounds in favor of a midtwelfth-century date, his evidence, as he freely observes, often hints at an earlier epoch. Even Favati, who wanted to place the poem in the second half of the thirteenth century, was obliged to admit the presence of “arcaismi assai numerosi” (27), including the proparoxytones virgines (1. 125), Judeus (ll. 129, 172), predicet (1. 173), imagines (1. 373), glorie (1. 450), angele

(1. 672); and an intervocalic Latin -d-: aiude (1. 326). If all these are semilearned or ecclesiastical, hinting at a cleric’s intentional archaization, one might also level the same accusation at the author of the Alexis, in which we read: imagene (1. 89), glorie (1. 295), aneme (|. 613), etc.°”

Further evidence is the well-known paratactic sentence found among the opening lines of the Voyage: “Dame, veistes unkes hume nul desuz ceil ‘Tant ben seist espee ne la corone el chef?” (Il. g-10)

Such a turn of phrase recalls Sainte Eulalie rather than a poem of ca. 1150.

The poet returns to his paratactic habit near the end of the poem: “Ja ne vendrum en terre nostre ne seit li los.” (I. 815) Theodor Heinermann, in an influential article, attempted to show that the poem dated from the middle of the twelfth century.“ He may have succeeded in refuting Koschwitz’s criteria, but his own conclusions betray a curious subjectivity. He believed that the author archaicized the text for satirical purposes (511). Heinermann subscribed to the apparently logical

notion that the occurrence of forms or words from two epochs in a text proves that the later period represented the moment of composition. Yet such an assumption, despite its appeal to reason, fails to take into account the role of transmission: a scribe can always insert anachronistic features

into the text. Heinermann’s goal, it would seem, was to prove that the Voyage was a biting condemnation of Louis VII’s disastrous crusade. His strongest argument was that this crusade was the only one that set out from

°°V. L. Dedeck-Heéry, ed., The Life of Saint Alexis, 9. 60 Heinermann, “Zeit und Sinn der Karlsreise.”

130 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Saint-Denis.*! In support, he summoned the well-known history of Louis’s unhappy marriage with Eleanor, and he added the trivial detail that a few unarmed pilgrims accompanied the royal family to the Holy Land (554). Heinermann’s ingenious linking of historical details to the poem led him to identify Louis VII’s overland route with Charles’s march, garbled though it is as outlined in the Voyage (Il. 100-108; Heinermann 554-55). Io explain

how Charles got to Jerusalem without passing through Constantinople, however, an improbable itinerary since this fabulous city sat astride all land

routes, Heinermann suddenly abandoned his view that the poet had an extraordinary grasp of geography and current events to proclaim that Jerusalem had to be reached first for literary reasons. Charles had to go there, he maintained, to obtain the relics, which would be necessary to the outcome of the plot. Heinermann insisted that the poem’s shortness was no indication of an early date, forgetting that narrative texts tended to lengthen with the progress of writing (515). He associated the brief description of the church in which Charles and the Peers sit in the seats of Christ and his disciples (I.

113-14) with the Church of the Last Supper in Jerusalem, constructed between 1102 and 1106, even though it would require only elementary knowledge of the New Testament to concoct the setting (526-28). He identified the Aimeri of the poem with Aimeri de Narbonne, who flourished 1105-1134, despite the obvious facts that Aimeri was a common name and that the text breathes no hint of Narbonne (537). Although I find Heinermann’s argument on the date of composition flawed, I agree with his critical reaction to the poem, for he detected in it laughter and sarcasm, as had others before him; he knew that it was no chanson de geste, and twice he cited Gaston Paris’s designation “poéme héroi-comique” (548, 561). ‘The poem is indeed steeped in its historical context, but its milieu was very likely three quarters of a century earlier than Heinermann would have us believe. Could Eleanor of Aquitaine have been the model for Charles’s outspoken empress? ‘The figure presented in the opening scene would be in harmony with such an idea, but to associate the one begging forgiveness at the feet of the returning emperor with the imperious queen of pompous, pious Louis beggars the imagination.

Morf and Gaston Paris, considering the poet to be “populaire,” held that he portrayed the situation in the Holy Land as it was in his own day, 61 Saint-Denis as a starting point for the journey clashes with the other versions of Charles’s trip, in which he normally sets out from his capital at Aix. The anomaly can be explained as an effort by this first account in French to place the events closer to home, as Bédier sensed. It is a poet’s reworking of the stories he knew, whose existence is attested in the surviving Norse versions.

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB I3I when pilgrims still had free access to holy places and Western Europe had not yet been shocked by the Muslim desecrations that led to the Crusades.” Morf felt that the poem could not have been composed after 1080, using reasoning that provoked a smile on Aebischer’s lips.® Aebischer argued that the author was “artist” enough to create a setting well before his day, just as Alexandre Dumas need not have lived under the reign of Louis XIII to have written Les Trois Mousquetaires or Gustave Flaubert in ancient Carthage to have imagined Salammbo (VN, 174). But closer examination of authors’ ability to separate themselves from their “ideology” reveals that they inevitably betray their social context, no matter how much effort they put into an “exit” from their personal history. Marxists like Terry Eagleton or Walter Benjamin would argue that neither Dumas nor Flaubert escaped their ideologies, and Walter Ong demonstrates that oral poets constantly remain in their social context. The creator of the Voyage must have experienced the effects of oral composition, even though the culture in which he lived was transitional.® Aebischer’s disdainful smile can be dislodged by a recognition that the concepts expressed by nineteenth-century critics in

such terms as “populaire” and “artiste” have now been refined into acceptability as “orality” and “chirography.” The poet's social context included a culture that had become zealous in the founding of churches and monasteries, and in the acquisition of relics to treasure in their vaults. This age of epic poetry was also one in which

thousands were flocking to churches. One can conjure up our poet as a jongleur smiling at the almost fanatical rush to view the relics at SaintDenis, for throughout the Middle Ages a certain skepticism accompanied belief in the miraculous powers of relics, along with doubts about their authenticity. The poet of the Voyage showed in one of his rare interventions that he was averse to the commercialism associated with religious festivities (I. 213). Suger remembered from his youth that the monks at Saint-Denis were often overwhelmed by the pilgrims who pressed toward the holy ob° Heinermann (535, 557) and Richard maintain that the commercial activity described in Il. 210-13 reflects Jerusalem in the second half of the twelfth century. See J. Richard, “Sur un passage du Pélerinage de Charlemagne: le marché de Jérusalem.” 6 “Argumentation qui fait sourire, 4 quatre-vingts ans de distance” (VN, 173). + See Terry Eagleton, Criticism and Ideology, and Walter Benjamin, or, Towards a Revolutionary Criticism; John L. Grigsby, “Le Conflit des théories”; Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy, esp. 49-57. 65 See William Paden, “Formulaic Diction in a Written Medium: Evidence from the Charroi de Nimes,” unpublished paper delivered at the Twentieth International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 1985. Paden shows that a sample chanson de geste displays characteristics of both writing and orality. 66 Ong favors this term to characterize cultures based on writing.

132 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE jects. In order to protect the relics, the monks often had to remove them by jumping through the abbey windows: “Per fenestras cum reliquiis moltoties effugerent” (quoted by Levillain, 255). Perhaps our Parisian or Anglo-Norman jongleur, who no doubt frequently attended the Lendit, felt he could laugh with his audience at those overzealous souls who threatened the very source of their salvation. ‘The spectacle need not have been somber. Our poet perhaps wished to spend three quarters of an hour with the pilgrims at Saint-Denis to evoke a smile or two as a contrast to the serious ceremony. Gaston Paris hinted that the Voyage had an audience other than

that of great epic poetry: “L’auteur du Roland aurait secoué la téte a ces badinages hardis” (“Chanson,” 15). But Walpole, in a sparkling re-creation of a jongleur’s performance at the Lendit, suggests that the audience was one and the same: “There [on the Saint-Denis field], our attention would at once have been attracted from the noisy stalls with wares and condiments of every kind spread out beneath their awnings, to an open space in which a crowd listened to a jongleur’s recitation. It might have been a passage from the Song of Roland. . .. Later that day, drawn by our pleasure of the morning to that same spot, we might have heard the same jongleur recite the Péler-

inage, chanting the rough, twelve-syllabled lines and, eking out their meager poetry with expression and gesture of his own, narrating this story: ....” (“Pelerinage,” 174). Walpole’s jongleur may not have been the creator we imagine, who, perceiving the events of the Endit, sensitive to the crowds at the Lendit (using Levillain’s discriminations here), skillfully mined the raw literary materials, still unrefined in the last half of the eleventh century, to bring into existence this little poem whose precise meaning and classification has defied the experts for well over a century. The rules of medieval

literature had not yet been established, let alone the names. Thus is explained, in part, the critics’ endless search for labels to characterize this poem. ‘To call the Voyage a chanson de geste is misleading, for readers such as Panvini, and even Gosman, who may have expected to find a long, serious poem relating heroic battles, tend to detect seriousness despite the poem’s

humor.’ The term “parody” is anachronistic. Although often adopted by moderns, e.g., Neuschafer, it belongs to antiquity. The Voyage exhibits enough aberrations, I repeat, to permit attributing to it a status other than “counter-song,” even though the author chose to mimic the epic form: assonanced laisses and an occasional set of /aisses similaires. Yet his rejection

of the decasyllabic line may hint that he refused to identify his poem not only with the chansons de geste, but also with hagiographic poems, in which

67 Martin Gosman, “La propagande politique.”

THE VOYAGEDE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 133 the decasyllable was favored. The change in form is minimal, however, in comparison to the modification in content. If the Voyage is a gab, and the first in its genre, the origins of the genre must be sought in sources other than previous or contemporary works of literature. Let us examine three potential breeding grounds of genre: (1) society, (2) language, (3) the work itself. Theorists are fond of advocating society as the primary breeding ground

of literary genre. Wellek and Warren some decades ago revived the conventional view that genre is a social institution, while Todorov, more recently, again underscored social ties: “Chaque €poque a son propre systeme de genres, qui est en rapport avec l’idéologie dominante.”® We have already explored the social hinterland of the custom of the boast in warrior societies, be it called oath, flyting, heitstrenging, vow, or gab. Charles, whether he was fabricating an excuse, as Favati contends (46ff.), or referring to an actual custom “in France, Paris, and Chartres” (1. 654), confirms the existence of a social institution which the poet explicitly labels “gab.” The inventive, exaggerated boasts, at bedtime and after the consumption of quantities of wine, clearly reflect traditional (and continuing) human behavior. It need not be succumbing to the “naiveté de la théorie classique de la Widerspiegelung” (Jauss, “Théorie des genres,” 87) to insist that customs, laws, and political and religious crises form a base for literature, for a latent genre that is ready at any time to materialize in a poetic superstructure.” The gab, as exemplified in the Voyage, requires imagination, an object (Hugon is the target of seven of the thirteen gabs), and an audience: a desired one, the French themselves, and an unwanted one, the spy, who will carry the message to the butt of the mockery. The poet’s public, like the chivalric audience within the narrative of the Voyage, took pleasure in the banter, but surely another public, believers in Charles’s grandeur and in the relics’ authenticity, was likely to be offended by the irreverent treatment of sacred elements, just as the spy is scandalized at the disrespect shown to his king. Is not the Descriptio a proof (post or ante rem) of a reaction as negative as that of Hugon’s delegate to the gab session? The social setting

for the gabs within the narrative corresponds to that of the living audience outside the poem. Similarities begin to emerge between the gab as an ingredient of the narrative and the narrative in its entirety.

As society may help to shape genre, so also may language or, more precisely, discourse. Speech for its own sake cannot produce literature. In 68 Wellek and Warren, Theory, ch. 17, esp. 226; Tzvetan ‘Todorov, Genres du discours,

I.

6? On the Marxist terms base and superstructure, see Terry Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism, 75.

134 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE his investigation of psychotic discourse, Todorov reports that the victims of paranoia are capable of fabricating a coherent world with their discourse, which displays correct syntax and few contradictions. Their speech, fertile with imagination, lacks only a signpost such as “Once upon a time” to be transformed into the (oral) literary genre of “story,” into a novella of greater coherence than many a nouveau roman of latter days. But the discourse that Todorov labels, perhaps a bit too arbitrarily, schizophrenic lacks both referentiality and coherence. Syntax emerges only to maintain the discourse

itself, not to link it with identifiable antecedents, so that it abounds in complete clauses, contradictions, and reversals of transitivity. Anaphora, a variety of syntagmic repetitions, and conjunctions tie the segments to each other, but to nothing outside speech. Ironically, in contemporary English we might call it “gabbing.” It is “verbal intoxication,” talk for its own sake (Todorov 8r1ff.). Thus language alone is incapable of giving birth to literature, or to genre, for it must be guided toward some goal. A “speech act” can, however, yield a genre. The two may coincide, as in prayer. A speech act may share characteristics with a genre, as “telling” participates in, in-

deed forms, the basic mode of the novel. On the other hand, no verbal activity in normal, everyday communication corresponds to a fixed form of lyric poetry such as a sonnet, despite the many properties a sonnet may have in common with talking.” I propose that the gab as a speech act has the same relationship to the Voyage as that of telling to the novel, i.e., /’acte de gaber resembles the act of composing a story about gabs. But since “telling” is not identical to a novel, we must assemble closer structural identities between gab as speech act and gab as literary genre to justify labeling one as the other.

The source of these identities can be uncovered in the work itself. A new genre can spring from a single work, as the fortune of Montaigne’s Essais can testify. Todorov in his exploration of several texts in Genres du discours attempts to show that each has forged its own generic rules and is thus a genre to itself. He subscribes to Blanchot’s liberation of individual works from the constraints of classification: “Seul importe le livre, tel qu’il

est, loin des genres, en dehors des rubriques, prose, poésie, roman, témoignage, sous lesquelles il refuse de se ranger. .. . Un livre n’appartient plus a un genre.”’! Even though Novalis’s Heinrich von Ofterdingen presents

itself as a novel, it betrays “poetic” characteristics. It abounds in parallelisms, repetitions, allegories, and an opaqueness that might best be described as a manifestation of Jakobson’s poetic function. Its “events” are moods, or stories within stories (enchdéssements), in which the énonciation is 70’These remarks paraphrase Todorov, 53. 71 Maurice Blanchot, Le Livre a venir, 243-44.

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 135 more important than the énoncé (Todorov, 104-116). In medieval literature the approach is even more justifiable, even necessary, since no canon exists against which to measure individual pieces. “La ot il n’existe pas de norme

établie et décrite d’un genre, il est nécessaire de dégager la structure en étudiant différents textes, en anticipant toujours une totalité possible ou bien le systeme régulateur d’une série de textes” (Jauss, “Théorie des genres,” 90). Without recognized norms, genres can be verified only by their immanent poetics. In other words, the elements necessary to describe the genre of a work are embedded in the work itself. Such is, I believe, the situation of the Voyage de Charlemagne.

The gabs occupy, quantitatively, a major portion of the poem: ll. 436617 constitute the prelude and the enunciation of the boasts; Il. 618-801 the consequences and execution, i.e, together some 366 of the entire 870 lines. If we include the important aftermath, the last 69 lines, in which Charles is able to prove his superior stature, receive the homage of the Byzantine ruler, and return to Saint-Denis in triumphant victory (over his wife!), the gabs and their consequences occupy exactly one half of the poem:

435 lines. Horrent, among others, has recognized their immanent essentiality to the poem’s total meaning and unity: “Les Francais recourent aux gabs pour se dédommager de leur humiliation devant la cour d’Hugon, Hugon recourt aux gabs pour se venger des Francais, et ce seront les gabs qui feront triompher les Francais” (Explication, 84). And later: “Dans économie du poéme, les gabs exécutés sont le ressort décisif de laction” (105). But what about the first half: Why the relics? Their principal function in the climax of the narrative is to enable the French, albeit indirectly, to perform the crucial gabs, especially Bernard’s: Deus i fist tel miracle, li glorius del cel, Que tute la grant ewe fait isir de sun bied, (ll. 774-75)

Even though the angel had promised that none would fail (1. 677), direct divine intervention occurs only in the flood; God merely adds to Guillaume’s tremendous personal strength in the execution of the second gab, for he needs no help from on high to lift the enormous sphere: Vint errant en la cambre u la pelote fud, A une main la levet, si la trait par vertud, Si la lessat aler, que trestut unt veiid: Mais de quarante teises ad del mur abatud! (Il. 747-50)

136 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Only in the final action of the blast does God’s intervention occur: Ne fu mie par force, mes par la Deu vertud, Pur amur Carlemaine chis i out acunduit. (ll. 751-52)

Absolutely no heavenly aid is required for Olivier to accomplish his boast (Il. 704-34).” Thus Neuschafer’s insistence (go n. 38) against Bédier and his followers that the transferral of relics is a subordinate theme proves to be only partially right. The relics function to save Charles and the Peers in the graded climax of the performance of the gabs. Olivier is able to seduce the emperor’s daughter by his own charm. God backs up Guillaume’s accuracy and strength as the suspense mounts. In the third and final performance,

God, spurred on by Bernard’s sign of the cross over the tranquil river, responds with mighty willingness. Divine aid comes not only because Charles benefits from his personal relationship with God, as Favati shows, but also because in the moment of need Charles has the relics at his disposal:

E ad fait les reliques aporter devant lui; A ureisuns se getent, s’unt lur culpes batud, E prient Deu del cel et la sue vertud, Del rei Hugun le Fort qu’il les garisset ui, Que encuntre lur est si forment irascud. Atant es vus un angele que Deus i aparut.”? (Il. 667-72) In an ingenious poetically stylised essay, Alexandre Leupin rests his whole argument on the belief that God takes over the function of Olivier’s compromising phallus (235). Leupin’s sparkling paronomastic play on erection, line of writing (227), metaphoric plow as a sex organ, Charles’s powerlessness (=impotence) to remain standing in the whirling palace, a “débandade” (238) are combined to present the text as an abolition of truth, the death of the chanson de geste. He perceives, nonetheless, an undeniable identity of the gabs and the feminine discourse of the queen, which is in fact admission that the dispute between husband and wife constitutes a gab, that this “parole folle” is the cause that launches the entire narrative movement (226). Despite Leupin’s brilliant discourse, and the smile one glimpses in his uncanny paronymy, his failure to take into account the two other accomplished gabs, Guillaume’s and Bertrand’s, leaves gaping holes in his argument. He attempts to persuade us that Olivier’s gab constitutes the core of the entire text, indeed that falsity is the text, and finally that his accomplishment was completed only with the aid of feminine voice (the daughter’s) and was instituted by feminine voice (the empress’s). See Alexandre Leupin, “La Compromision.” 3 Favati’s emendation of this line (“Atant as vus un angele qui, Deus! i aparut”) is worthy of note, but is condemned by Horrent in his review; see CCM 12 (1969), 174.

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 137 It was with finely honed calculation that the poet created the preliminary episode in Jerusalem, where Charles, whether through luck, unmitigated audacity, or naive ignorance, acquired the trove of relics, which proliferated miracles as he traveled to Constantinople. The peak of their role is reached when they attract an angel from Heaven to extract the boastful knights from impending disaster at the most crucial moment of their trip. In the aftermath, Charles fulfills his primary boast entirely on his own, with no help from either the relics or divine intervention, his natural physique enhanced by the crown that he had conveniently stashed away for this very purpose: Karlemaines portat la grant corone a or, Li reis Hugue la sue, plus basement un poi: Karlemaines fud graindre de plein ped et III. pouz. Franceis les esgarderent, n’i out un n’en parolt: “Ma dame la reine folie dist et tord; Mult par est Karles ber pur demener esforz: Ja ne vendrum en terre nostre ne seit li los.” (II. 809-15)

Thus the queen’s foolishness, first mentioned by the narrator in |. 12, is confirmed, as is her error (1. 813). Charles can return to his Jand to receive

the praise he was seeking from the outset. The narrative as a whole has imitated, in macrocosm, the tripartite structure of the gab. Charles’s boast at the outset (Il. 9-11) had a hypothesis in which he pointed out visible objects (meeting the paradigmatic gab requirement of the use of the verb veir), and a promise of action: he would conquer cities with his spear. The envisioned consequences—confirmation of his superiority—were displaced by the queen’s own boast, which in turn prefigured the way the entire narrative played out. She was provoked by Charles’s splendor just as the French were irritated by Hugon’s. She was threatened with decapitation by her enraged host (who happened to be her husband), as the French

were by Hugon. She recanted, pleading that she had spoken in play, as Charles had attempted to blame drinking and social custom for the imprudence of the French. At the end Charles forgives her, as Hugon had been obliged to forgive the French. The structure is derived from the same custom that had earlier manifested itself in the flytings or the heitstrenging:

a knight brags; others try to better the boast; the speech act brings on threatening consequences; performance is required; the knight escapes punishment. The gab is the mainspring of the entire narrative movement in the Voyage de Charlemagne.

One may object that the immanent structures whose identities I have just sketched impose too much exchanging of roles (queen/emperor,

138 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Charles/Hugon, Paris/Constantinople), and that so much generalization is

required to ferret out these similarities that other narratives might be squeezed into the same system, to the point that a proliferation of gabs might be envisaged in medieval literature.’* Let me then focus on the very heart of the gab as it has emerged in the Voyage: the boast. The poet is himself a boaster. By choosing Charles and a set of Twelve Peers from two epic cycles, the cycle of Charlemagne and the William cycle, and by mixing heroes from the North and the South, the poet brags that his story, which he tells with tongue in his cheek, merits the same deep respect as the lofty chansons de geste.’> He boasts that the characters he evokes are comparable to Christ and his Disciples.”° He pretends to know the origin of the term Magnus attached to the emperor’s name:

Aies nun Charles Maines sur tuz reis curunez! (l. 158)” He claims to report the genesis of the Chanson de Roland by dramatizing the promise that the patriarch extracts from Charles to destroy the Saracens

in Spain (Il. 229-32).’8 He pretends that the French Emperor won the marvelous city of Constantinople, indeed the Byzantine Empire, without battle: Mult fu lied et jotus Carlemaines li ber, Ki tel rei ad cunquis sanz bataille campel. (Il. 858-59)

In Favati’s view, Charles has acquired the most fabulous city that the poet could imagine, whose conquest without arms was a most absurd feat. Both the city’s historical or literary fame and the coincidental resemblance of Hugon le Fort to the Welsh Hu Gadarn posited by Walpole are secondary, the Italian scholar observed justifiably, for what counts is the stupendous

wealth and marvel of the conquest (Favati, 60, 64-65). Finally the poet makes the boast that has overwhelmed posterity, the claim that Charlemagne personally traveled to the Holy Land and brought back the relics 7* One example of overgeneralization, Eugene Dorfman’s study of The Narremes in the Medieval Romance Epic, shows that forcing literary structures into apparently neat molds is often an illusory exercise. ’> Neuschafer (94 n. 44) viewed the reference to the Chanson de Roland in \l. 226-32 as a reason to place the poem in the Carolingian cycle. 76 The Jew believes he is in the presence of Holy Men. I have remarked on similarities between the gabs and the Last Supper in chapter 2. ”” The line actually lacks the epithet “Maines,” but every editor since Koschwitz has added the full name, which is written out for the first time in line 166. 78 Both Favati (28) and Neuschafer (94 n. 44) hint at these points, but without integrating them into the overall boasting spirit.

THE VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE AS GAB 139 deposited in the abbey church of Saint-Denis. His blustery, good-natured “tall tale” is the most successful gab of all. It has amused, perplexed, and deceived its audience for centuries. The uncertainty over the poem’s title traced at the beginning of this chapter shows that, from its first publication in modern times, critics have vacillated in their designations of its genre: chanson, voyage, pélerinage, parody, fabliau, conte a rire, and so on, but they have also sensed from at least Bédier’s time that nothing really prevented them from calling it a gab. Some historians of literature, Bédier averred, took the Voyage too seriously and

saw in the author “non pas un jongleur en veine d’inventions drolatiques, mais un clerc, qui, pour jeter du discrédit sur la poésie vulgaire, aurait voulu composer ‘un satire des chansons de geste’ et ‘un roman moral’ ” (Léegendes,

4:152-—53). The reason for such misconception, he continued, lies in the work itself, “car son oeuvre est ambigtie, et c’est bien la plus obscure des chansons de geste. Elle est de sa fagon un gab, une gageure de méler le profane et le sacré, ’héroique et le bouffon” (4:153, my emphasis). Bédier’s remark was perhaps casual, while Favati’s effort to categorize the Voyage as a gab is

more systematic: “Ma, se si debba racchiudere in un’unica formula limpressione che suscita questo breve poema, io definirei senza grande esitazione tutto il Voyage un grande gab” (79). But Favati’s grounds for labeling the poem a gab include its parodies of epic themes, its commonplaces, and its heroes. He places the Voyage in the same category as Marcabru’s D’aisso lau Dieu, even though it is devoid of religious or moralizing tendencies and above all lacks the bitter, serious tone of the troubadour’s gap.”° Favati’s notion of the gab as genre includes, then, some of the attributes of parody and anticipates (or overlaps with) Neuschafer’s interpretation. Favati insists that the Voyage’s “libero divertimento” was aimed at showing up or countering boring frustrations in the decadent epic. Doubtless this attitude explains in part why he prefers a later date of composition (the second half of the thirteenth century) to the early periods, when epic was in flower. But Favati remains unsatisfied with detecting mere affinities to parody to establish his argument for viewing the Voyage as gab. He turns to Fechner’s observation that the lyric gap never proved to be a fixed form, that it was a thematic unity recurring in varied garb. Nonetheless, Favati goes on to prove that the poet’s technique is far tighter, more artistic, more studied than Rychner recognized. He succeeds, I think, in demonstrating that the poet paid more attention to his craft than Rychner had appreciated,

but not that this art is peculiar to the gab as genre. One cannot deny that the Voyage poet knew his craft, but the identifiable structures of the gab as genre lie elsewhere. ”? For these qualities in Marcabru’s gap, Favati relies on Roncaglia’s interpretation.

140 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE I offered a description of the generic structure of the gab at the end of the preceding chapter. Its five characteristics cannot, of course, be expanded to include the entire Voyage, for as a narrative the poem requires more than a repetitive grammar, and it is divisible into two rather than three parts, although one could plausibly argue that three situations dominate the action: (1) the prelude in front of the church at Saint-Denis, (2) Jerusalem, (3) Constantinople. What distinguishes the narrative gab, and thus the genre itself, from the lyric gap is the inescapable consequence of boasting before an audience, an outcome springing from the principle of responsibility for one’s words. A further sign of the genre is the moment of narration itself, the time after drinking and eating during which the gathered boasters attempt to outdo each other. There is no need to suppose that the Voyage poet had just imbibed a great deal of wine before composing

his boast, or that he told his story at bedtime after dinner, but surely one can hypothesize that he felt himself to be in competition with the fashionable songs of his time and, further, that his humorous bravado may have disturbed a “spy” in the audience, a listener, perhaps a delegate from the Abbey of Saint-Denis, who then took it upon himself to counter with another version of the Voyage, which may have been the Descriptio. Certainly,

over the centuries, the poem inspired many attempts to repeat (the Norse and Welsh translations, for example) or to outdo its story (the rich cycle of Galien le Restoré).

In sum, critics have not been averse to conceding that the Voyage is a gab. Heinermann, who attempted to show that the poem was a political satire of Louis VII’s botched crusade, makes a comment that could serve as the definition of a gab: “Meine Ansicht ist, dass die Karlsreise ein Scherz-

und Spottgedicht mit heroischem Hintergrund und Gewand ist” (550), a remark that also caught Favati’s attention (41 n. 61). Aebischer, we recall, twice referred to it as a kind of a gab: “Avant d’étre épopée ou fabliau, récit pieux ou histoire de translation de reliques, le Voyage est un conte. Et ce n’est que par hasard, ou mieux par la volonté d’un spirituel poéte, que ce conte est devenu, dans la version la plus connue, un ris et un gabet” (9), a theme to which he returns later (161). In his review of Favati’s edition, Horrent continues to insist that the poem is less a parody of epic themes than a “joyeux divertissement,” but is willing to admit that “en un certain sens, le poéme est bien un gab” (CCM 12 [1969], 166). With the corroboration of recent critical theory and of these scholarly opinions, we can henceforth justifiably claim that the Voyage de Charlemagne

created its own genre, and that it is indeed a gab. It is first and finest in its class, but is it a hapax, like Aucassin et Nicolete, and therefore the last gab? I believe not.

5

Latencies

IIN THE FIRST CHAPTER I traced the word gab from its earliest meanings cen-

tering on mockery to the specialized sense of ‘boast’; the next two chapters

followed the boast as it grew into a potential generic structure that took on characteristics of a promise, a speech act with consequences, a contract with the future. As such it resembles, then, a vow or an oath. What superficially distinguishes vow (voeu) and oath (serment) from gab is solemnity combined with an appeal to a divinity or sacred object. Yet the highly formalized air in which the gabs are spoken, the hierarchy of their participants, and their introductions and closing commentaries approach the solemnity one expects in a vow or oath. Furthermore, the appeal to a divinity does indeed occur in the Voyage, although after rather than before or during

the pronouncements. One need not quibble then about the parallels between gab and oath or vow. The nature of feudal society, with its foundations built on loyalty, promise, and pride, was bound to engender abundant manifestations of gab-like fragments in literature. The most challenging and elusive of these manifestations are likely to be the least identifiable, or the most controversial. The probability of high frequency tempts the researcher (how often it happens!) to see the expected phenomenon at every turn of the text. Indeed, what here was once intended to be a brief survey of a few famous works with characteristics conforming to a potential genre

burgeoned into an amorphous catalogue of (albeit fascinating) clues to socio-literary behavior. I have classified the welter of fragments into the following categories: (1) vows or oaths, especially in the epic; (2) manifestations of the gab in courtly romance; (3) reworkings, which are subdivided into (3.1) elaborations or continuations of Olivier’s gab, and (3.2) imitations and translations of the Voyage. 141

142 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE 1. Vows and Oaths The first extant writing in French happens to be a pair of oaths, the Serments de Strasbourg, but it is not literary, and its consequences spill over into history rather than remaining within the narrative. Yet a simple hierarchy is observed when the grandsons of Charlemagne pronounce their first oaths in the order of their birth: “Lodhuvicus autem, quia major natu, prior exorsus sic coepit.”! Then the people of the two armies swear, although they make no direct appeal to God as do the two leaders. The boasts pronounced by the Saracens in the Oxford version of the Chanson de Roland, laisses 69-78 (Il. 860-993), constitute a significant latency. Both Favati and Brault label them as gabs, and the Italian scholar hints that this scene may have served as a model for the Voyage poet, who might have relied on a reversal of roles for comic or ridiculing effect. The French in the Voyage, by imitating the pagans of the Roland, would thus debase themselves: “Proprio con le guerresche vanterie dei pagani sembra giusto met-

tere in rapporto quelle dei Franceis, che nel confronto s’illuminano dironia” (Favati, 46). Brault conjectures, daringly, that the pagan boasts took place at night, thus echoing a primitive “diabolical rite.” Since the gabs were spoken just before bedtime at Constantinople, it would seem that the two episodes might share another common point, but no evidence in

the Roland supports Brault’s speculation, as he himself freely admits.’ Nonetheless he perspicaciously observes that although the mounted pagans

laugh and shout when they converge upon Marsile to make their pronouncements, their words imply vowing and oath-taking, especially those of Margariz, who swears upon his sword: Veez m’espee, ki d’or est enheldie, Si la tramist li amiralz de Primes. Jo vos plevis qu’en vermeill sanc ert mise. (Il. 966-68)

One may assume that since Margariz’s was the most detailed boast, others, if expanded, would have included specific ceremonial words, such as “je

veu et promet” or “je jur,” but the personages in question, being pagan, could not be expected to produce sacred objects or swear to a Christian God. Margariz’s sword, however, may be meant to symbolize or imitate '’Thus Nithard introduces the Latin text of the oath. Before the French text he repeats the same information: “Lodhuvicus, quoniam major natu erat, prior haec deinde

se servaturum testatus est” in Philippe Lauer’s edition (Paris, 1926) cited by W. D. Elcock, The Romance Languages, 335. 2 The Song of Roland: An Analytical Edition, ed. Gerard J. Brault, 1:172.

LATENCIES 143 the swords of Christian knights in which relics were encased. The repeated mention of swords by the pagans (e.g., ll. 925, 949, 966, 984) implies that, like the relics, these instruments will protect the bearers at the appropriate moment. We stumble across another touchstone in the narrator’s assurance that Corsalis speaks “a lei de bon vassal” (887), for the “manner of a good

vassal” echoes or foreshadows the gabs as “custom,” which is the way Charles characterizes them in the Voyage (654). The scene remains, however, a typical example of knights summoning up their sinews before battle, “activating their adrenalin,” as John Benton put it in describing similar rituals among Muslim warriors.’ Although the ingredients of boasting, mocking, vowing, potential or real enemies, comradeship, custom, and invention constitute the Saracens’ activity, still absent (of the criteria I have set up to define gab) are the elements of drinking, festivity, and mealtime, which permeate the custom(s) studied in chapter II. Scholars have not failed to observe that it was during a feast of some importance that Roland made the famous vow to die with his head facing towards the enemy, should he perish in a foreign land.* Charles recalls the event: A Eis esteie, a une feste anoel, Si se vanterent mi vaillant chevaler De granz batailles, de forz esturs pleners. D’une raisun oi Rollant parler: Ja ne murreit en estrange regnet Ne trespassast ses hume e ses pers, Vers lur pais avreit sun chef turnet, Cunquerrantment si finereit li bers.” (Il. 2860-67)

Foulet identifies the “feste anoel” as any one of the four major feasts of

the Church: Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, or All Saints’ Day.’ Since Charles’s valiant knights were all boasting together, we can safely conjecture that wine was flowing in celebration of the joyous event and that the mood was even less tense than the evening in Constantinople, on which occasion the French were not at “home” in Aix-la-Chapelle or Saint-Denis.

> Benton, “Individualism and Conformity in Western Europe,” 152. + Cf. Favati, 46; Adolf Tobler, “Exegetisches: Plus a paroles an plain pot De vin qu’an un mui de cervoise,” 83. 5 Lucien Foulet, “Glossaire,” in La Chanson de Roland commentée, Joseph Bédier, s.v. anoel.

144 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE ‘Tobler (83) cites this instance as an example of a vow fulfilled, in opposition to so many boasts that remain empty, for indeed Charles discovers the dead

Roland’s body pointed toward the Saracen hosts. Frappier envisions the circumstances of Roland’s vow as “une concurrence de vantardises” during which the hero aimed at eclipsing the prowess of his men and his peers by

penetrating farthest into enemy territory (1. 2865) as well as facing the adversary after death.° In short, the scene recalls once again the Germanic flytings and heitstrengingar. Vivien’s vow, which scholars have compared to Roland’s (Frappier), and even to the gabs (Knudson), is probably first mentioned in the Chanson de Guillaume in what is already an imperfect reworking of the tradition. The

vow differs from Roland’s and from the gabs in its solemnity and in the circumstances surrounding it, insofar as those circumstances can be ascertained. ‘Uhe Chanson de Guillaume provides only indirect reports of Vivien’s speech act:

N’en turnerai, car a Deu I’ai pramis Que ja ne fuierai pur pour de morir. (Il. 292-93) Ja n’en turnerai, car pramis l’ai a Dé, Que ja ne fuierai de bataille champel. (Il. 587-88) Ja n’en irrai, car a Deu |’ai pramis Que ne fuierai pur creme de morir. (Il. 598-99)’

These are Vivien’s words spoken on the field of battle even as the actual consequences of his vow are being fulfilled. Therefore the surviving text of the Guillaume reports action before utterance, reversing the sequence in the Voyage, Beowulf, Fomsvikinga Saga, and others, but this reversal is due

to the accidents of history rather than to a striving for comic effect. This earliest version of Vivien’s vow provides the least information about it.

Jean Frappier, Chansons de geste du cycle de Guillaume d’Orange, 1:191. ’ La Chanson de Guillaume, ed. Duncan McMillan, SATE, 2 vols. All succeeding ref-

erences are to this edition. Cf. Frappier, 1:186-87. Madame Jeanne Wathelet-Willem’s magnificent edition of the Guillaume was not available to me at the time of composition of this chapter.

LATENCIES 145 Lacking are the circumstances, the exact wording, and the moment in Vivien’s life when it was spoken.*®

We learn a little more about the vow in Aliscans.? Guillaume, in lamenting his nephew’s death, calls it a convenant with God:

Biaus sire niés, molt ai mon cuer iré! 792°

En convenant etis a damedeé, 793

Ke ne fuiroies en bataille campel 704 Por Sarrasins plaine lance d’esté. 795 Mien esciént bien l’avés averé, 795° Vos serement ne sont mie faussé. 795° Thus Vivien had vowed not to retreat on the battlefield the length of a lance. The vow has been intensified in the manner typical of the “outdoing”

topos discussed by Curtius.'° The length of the prohibited retreat has intrigued scholars (see Frappier’s discussion), for it involves the theme of the vow accomplished over against that of the vow broken. In Aliscans, Guil-

laume testifies that the oath (serement) has been strictly observed, thus remaining in the general framework of the version recorded in Guillaume: the accomplishment of the action is related before the vow itself. And when Vivien regains consciousness, he provides even greater detail about his vow: Dist Viviens: “Molt sui or trespensés: Au jor que primes deué!! mes armes porter, A dieu vouai, ke l’oirent mi per, 8 Speaking of the texts as we now have them, the Chanson de Guillaume probably preceded Aliscans and certainly La Chevalerie Vivien. Suchier dates the Guillaume as early as 1080 in Romania 53 (1927):453 (cf. Frappier, Les Chansons, 1:150 n. 2), whereas McMillan refuses to place it before the last third of the twelfth century. McMillan’s unlimited faith in the value of the written document as testimony to the chronology leads him , to conclude that the Guillaume is not necessarily at the heart of the cycle d’Orange (2:131).

When factors other than written linguistic evidence are considered, scholars such as Suchier come to less tendentious results. Jeanne Wathelet-Willem fixes the version bequeathed us in British Library MS Add. 38663 at a period somewhere between the Roland and the Voyage, i.e., in her view, about 1140. See Lettres Romanes 7 (1953): 331ag; cf. Frappier, Les Chansons, 1:155 n. 1. Its relationship to the Roland is crucial not only for the dating but for the interpretation as well. Frappier (1:156) dates it no later than the mid-twelfth century and probably not long after the composition of the Oxford Roland. See also Wathelet-Willem’s discussion in her Recherches, 1:453-72. ° Erich Wienbeck, Wilhelm Hartnacke, and Paul Rasch, Aliscans, kritischer Text. Varjants to 1. 795 are dester and de Je (of width). Line 851 reads Jonc; cf. next quoted passage. 10 Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. ‘Trask, 162-65. 1 Var. dui.

146 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Ke ne fuiroie por Turc ne por Escler Lonc une lance, a tant le puis esmer, __ Ne de bataille ne me verroit torner, Ke mort u vif m’i porroit on trover. Mais une gent me fist hui retorner, Ne sai com lonc, car ne le puis esmer; Je criem, mon veu ne m/aient fait fauser.” “Niés,” dist Guillaumes, “ne vous estuet douter.” (ll. 847-57)

Vivien’s worries obscure once again the vow and its potential fulfillment.

For, though Guillaume had assured his nephew that as far as he knew (“mien escient,” 798) the pact with God had been kept, Vivien’s lack of certainty about strict adherence to lance-length retreats makes him an even

more tragic hero.” ‘Tactics on the battle field require movement in all directions, so that the vow’s intensification (with some versions reducing the distance of retreat to only a foot) renders it as outrageous as the feats promised in the gabs.? In any case neither God, his angel, nor miracleworking relics have come to Vivien’s aid.'*

'2 Farlier in the battle, Vivien turned tail before the enemy hoard: Arire torne le cief de l’auferrant. N’ot pas fui une lance tenant, Quant devant lui vit une aige corant; Dont sot il bien, passé ot convenant. (ll. 84-87) When he realizes his failure, he renews his promise, alone in front of the approaching enemy:

Li gentix quens s’arestut maintenant, Vers damedieu vait sa colpe clamant, De sa main destre aloit son pis batant. “Diex, moie cope, ke jou ai fui tant! Ne foi mais en trestot mon vivant. Jal comperront paien por sol itant.” (II. 88-93) 15 'The very notion of outbidding evident in the vow’s intensification hints at a date

later than that of Guillaume. Frappier notes, too, “un effort de cohérence cyclique” (1:240) which attests to a later date. He suggests the third quarter of the twelfth century, perhaps just after 1185. 14 Several manuscripts carry an inserted passage in which an angel offers no comfort, for he discloses that Guillaume, the hero’s last hope for survival, is surrounded by fifteen thousand pagans: Et li saint angle vient del ciel descendant (from MS m) Qui li a dit: “Guillaumes vient poignant,

LATENCIES 147 The author of La Chevalerie Vivien fills the gap that tradition had opened by finally relating in detail the circumstances and the substance of Vivien’s

vow. [he text begins with the usual jongleur’s exhortation (absent from both the Roland and the Voyage) and proceeds immediately to the dubbing ceremony. Io everyone’s surprise and dismay, Vivien utters his vow spontaneously in response to his uncle Guillaume’s girding the sword on him. Never will he flee before Sarrasin, Turk, or “Escler,” or leave the battlefield once under arms: Dist Viviens: “Biaus oncles, entendés; Par teil covent l’espee me doneis: En covenant ai si a Damedé, Lou glorios, lou roi de maiestei, Voient Guibor qui m’a norit soef, Et voiant vos et voiant tos les pers, Que ne fuirai ja mais en mon aei Por Sarrasin, por ‘Tur ne por Escler, Puis que ge soie de mes armes armés Et jou avrai mon hiame el chief fermé, Ja tant n’estroi en bataille apresseis.” (il. r1—21)!5

Guillaume, the voice of experience, warns him against such rigid combat tactics, but the admonishment serves only to inspire a drastic “Ausbetung” (Curtius’s term), an increase in difficulty, the limitation of retreat no longer a lance’s length as in Aliscans, but now the famous “full foot of land”: “Oncles Guillelmes,” dist Viviens li frans, “Par tel covent me saigniés vos lou brent: Por Sarrasin, por Ture ne por Persant Ne fuirai ge ja mais en mon vivant

Mais nel verras, s’avra dolor molt grant, Quar enclos l’ont .xv.m. Perssant. (ll. 4o4:15—18)

The editors adopted for |. 404 15: “Et le saint angle le vet reconfortant,” a reading quite unacceptable in that it contradicts the two following lines. Obviously the above reading is preferable. It comes from MS m (13th c., Bibl. Mun. Boulogne-sur-Mer), which benefits from a direct line to early exemplars according to the stemma established by Hartnacke (xxx).

‘5 La Chevalerie Vivien, ed. A. L. Terracher. [Ed. note: This edition contains ‘Jerracher’s “Texte Critique” and the text of the Boulogne redactor on facing pages.]

148 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Plain piet de terre, par lou mien esciant; Tant le met ge vers Deu en covenant.” (Il. 37-42)

Thus Guillaume’s concern, the damper he attempts to place on his nephew’s impetuous boast, merely incites the young man (of fifteen years) to boast again, in an echo of that prideful ceremony of flytings that here mutates into a reckless, untried warrior’s contest with himself. His pride is innocent, in contrast to Charles’s middle-aged vanity in the initial scenes of the Voyage, and will have tragic consequences. Vivien’s vow remains solemn, and it is inflamed by youthful rashness rather than by wine. It is in the Occitan sense a gap, though scholars never refer to it as such, probably because of the recurrent word covenant, which elevates the boast to the level of a pact with God, and perhaps also because of the lack of festive atmosphere or of group participation, even though the occasion is a happy feast-day of the liturgical calendar: Pentecost (1. 7), a “feste anoel” like the day on which Roland vowed that he would die facing the enemy. But as in the gabs, the narrative consequences of Vivien’s words extend to the point of their becoming the major springboard of the action in all the versions

of the Guillaume cycle. The importance attached to the vow has not tempted any scholar to reclassify any of the chansons de geste of this cycle

into a “vow” genre, but the modern title assigned to the poem in which the hero makes his oath has wavered between Chevalerie and Covenant Vivien (Frappier Chansons, 1:279 n. 2), and the peculiar character of the Chanson de Guillaume persuaded McMillan to identify it as a “roman de chevalerie.”!° The reactions of critics remain valuable post rem insights into the genre; they respond when a straying from the “norms” has occurred, when things seem to be “out of place.” If potential creators of genre disturb the order of things, some medieval redactors tend to restore events to the ordinary. The latecomer who composed the Chevalerie Vivien places the vow ceremony before the hero’s testing on the battlefield and thus reverses the order of events as narrated in the Chanson de Guillaume and Aliscans. But another latecomer, the redactor of the Boulogne Chevalerie, follows earlier versions when he speaks of a vow that was taken before the story begins. Vivien guarantees his fidelity by swearing on relics he had been able to find during his captivity: “Oncles Guillelmes,” dist Viviens li bers, “Si m/ait Diex, jou l’ai sor sains juré, ‘6 Frappier objects to this term, insisting that the work remains epic, while Wilmotte betrayed a similar reaction by suggesting that the Guillaume was a plagiarism of the Chanson de Roland (Frappier, 1:149).

LATENCIES 149 Bien a .II. ans acomplis et passés, Quant jou estoie en Maldrane enserrés; La je jurai, voiant les marchans bers; Ne puet autrement estre.” (Il. 40-45)

If the Chevalerie author aimed to correct a perceived temporal dislocation in the Guillaume story as transmitted by tradition, that purpose was contravened by the Boulogne redactor. To that redactor, the potential anomaly of a thirteen-year-old Vivien’s having been able to discover and recognize Christian relics in a far-off pagan land was of less concern than the constraints of tradition, and he emphasized the essence of Vivien’s story as the quasi-religious mystery of a youth confronting his destiny alone. Both the Guillaume and the Voyage depend heavily on the Roland as a fount of motifs. Favati’s demonstration of close parallelisms for the Voyage is matched by Frappier’s elaboration of the redistribution of roles in the Chanson de Guillaume. His interpretation of Vivien as an amalgamation of Olivier’s sapientia and Roland’s fortitudo is oft-repeated, but just as noteworthy is the transfer of Roland’s folly to Tiébaut. In the Roland, Olivier had wisely pleaded for a call to bring Charlemagne’s army to the rescue before disaster befell the French. Roland refused on the grounds that such an expedient would be cowardly. When Roland realized that Charles’s help was needed after all, Olivier replied in terms that echo Roland’s earlier argument: to appeal to Charles would be an admission of cowardice (Koland, \l. 1028-1109; Frappier, 1:158-59). This “chiasme psychologique” (Frappier, 1:159) materializes in Guillaume with Tiébaut’s rash rejection of Vivien’s advice to send for Guillaume’s army on the eve of the Saracen attack, but Tiébaut’s folly stems from vanity exaggerated by drunkenness. The scene occurs in the evening, before bedtime, after the count and his nephew have imbibed more than their share: Tedbald le cunte reperout de vespres, E sun nevou Esturmi qui l’adestre, E Vivien i fu, li bon niés Willame,

E od lui set cenz chevalers de sa tere. |

Tedbald i ert si ivre que plus n’i poet estre, E Esturmi sun nevou que par le poig l’adestre. (Il. 28-32)

Esturmi counters Vivien’s prudent counsel by observing that Guillaume, with his vast army, would receive all the credit for the victory (ll. 59-69).

150 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE In the exchange that follows, Vivien and Esturmi claim honor for their uncles that would, if transferred to themselves, convert the dialogue into a flyting or a gab session, while in its surviving form it resembles a sannjafnaor. Tiébaut’s decision is announced by a toast to Esturmi: Dunt dist Tedbald : “Aportez mei le vin, Si me donez, si beverai a Esturmi; Ainz demain prime requerrun Arrabiz, De set liwes en orrat l’em les criz, Hanstes freindre e forz escuz croissir.” E li botillers lur aporta le vin, But ent Tedbald, sin donad a Esturmi; E Vivien s’en alad a sun ostel durmir. (Il. 89-96)

As was the case for the J6msvikings, the sobriety of the next day brings sharp reality: ‘Tiébaut exclaims on catching sight of the pagan multitudes: “Ja ne combaterai sanz Willame” (1. 201). The count and Esturmi flee while

the honorable Vivien, true to his vow, remains to meet his tragic death." The more solemn Chanson de Guillaume thus contrasts dramatically with the Voyage de Charlemagne, though both parallel the Chanson de Roland, and both use as the springboard of their narrative action a boast, a vow, a gab."®

Knudson saw no utility in the gabs, for if Hugon had not had the “idée saugrenue” to make the French accomplish them, he claims, they would have remained “des propos de buveurs.”!® Yet one could argue, too, that Vivien’s vow would have remained useless if Tiébaut had not had the drunken idea that he could conquer the Saracens against overwhelming odds. ‘The die was cast the very instant the French began to speak, that evening in Constantinople, because Hugon had placed his escut among them. Anything they said could be used against them, making the conflict between Hugon and Charles as inevitable as was Vivien’s demise on the

battlefield from his outrageous verbal contract with God that he would never retreat, no matter what the combat tactics for victory might be. Consequences flow from words in both narratives. Vivien’s vow is a latent gab

17 See Wathelet-Willem’s detailed discussion of these scenes in Recherches, 1:282—321.

18 A touch of comedy occasionally relieves the humorless tragedy of the Chanson de Guillaume. Wathelet-Willem (1:298 n. 83) believes that the medieval audience must have broken out in laughter when hearing of ‘Tiébaut’s loosened bowels (Il. 345-54). From a realist’s viewpoint, however, this common physical reaction of soldiers under mortal stress merely heightens the grotesque sorrow of the situation. '? Charles A. Knudson, “Serments téméraires et gabs,” 97.

LATENCIES ISI in which the ingredients are rearranged with some shaded out, and whose outcome brings sorrow rather than laughter. De Vries has conjectured, perhaps metaphorically, that the lost episode in the early part of Gormont et Isembart contained gabs pronounced by Hugelin and his nephew Gontier and directed against Gormont.”° De Vries’s use of the word gabs apparently emphasizes the notion of trick’, as his later comment hints: “des tours bien frivoles” (54). Nonetheless the available evidence is worth examining to determine if a gab-like event could have been included. Since the protagonist, Gormont, was obviously modeled on a redoubtable and famous Viking jarl Gorm, and the song itself celebrated a rare victory over the Northmen at Saucourt in 881, the vestiges of Scandinavian custom could well have found their way into the poem. Furthermore, as Ferdinand Lot suggests, Gormont et Isembart may be a ninth- or tenth-century Norman saga transformed into a chanson de geste.?! A final coincidence invites our attention: Gorm (the name is also reported as Gudrum, Guthrum, and Gormundus) reigned as a lord in East Anglia, the very kingdom where Beowulf may have been composed three centuries earlier.” Hugelin and his nephew had come as ambassadors to Gormont’s court, where they may have engaged in a flyting. ‘The surviving fragment recounts

a later battle in which Gormont has just slain eight French knights when Hugelin appears on the battlefield, identified as the one who had been Louis’s messenger:

Dunc len esgarda Hugelin, celui qui le message fist. (Il. 196-97)?

Hugelin rushes into the press despite his king’s objections and would have killed the enemy chief had he not been prevented (Il. 212-238). He then discloses some unpleasant news to his rival: Huelin dist une novele qui a Gormund ne fut pas bele: 20 Jan de Vries, “La Chanson de Gormont et Isembart.” | adopt the name Hugelin for the character otherwise named Hugon, Huon, Huelin, to avoid confusion with the coincidentally similar name of Hugon of Constantinople. 71 Lot, “Etudes sur les légendes épiques frangaises, 3: Encore Gormond et Isembart.” Cf. de Vries, 48-52. 22 Beowulf: A Dual-Language Edition, ed. and trans. Howell D. Chickering, Jr., 247ff. 23 Gormont et Isembart, fragment de chanson de geste du XIle siecle, ed. Alphonse Bayot,

CFMA. I reproduce Bayot’s transcription rather than his critical text for reasons that will become obvious below.

152 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE “C’est Huelin qui vos meisele, qui, l’autrir, fut a voz herberges le message Lowis faire. Si vos servi come pulcele; le poun mis en I’asquiele: unkes n’en mustes la maissele. (Il. 239-46)

These lines form the core of what De Vries labeled a gab (43), but exactly what Hugelin refers to has puzzled scholars, and the ambiguity led P. E. Bennett to identify Hugelin as a “nain enchanteur.”** Just what had Hugelin done? It is certain that he had been Louis’s messenger. Secondly, the information that he now offers is news to Gormont, who has been deceived

_ and is angry (Il. 247-250): he will exact a recompense from the rascal. Hugelin needles, harrasses, torments Gormont: thus Bayot interprets the verb meisele (I. 241), finely chosen for assonance with its near homonym, muaissele (1. 246) ‘jaw’, which evokes the very image of speaking. “Come pulcele,” as a maiden, Hugelin had served Gormont a peacock. In what sense is “come pulcele” to be taken? Was the young Hugelin disguised, or had he merely acted humbly in contrast to his present masculine behavior? This problem led Horrent to compare Hugelin’s trick with Aimer’s enigmatic gab in the Voyage.?> Aimer promises to don a strange cap, which may make him invisible, conjectured Horrent, but which in any case will disguise him and enable him to drink Hugon’s wine, eat his fish, and finally deliver him a fierce blow from behind.*?° Hugelin boasts that, whether in female garb or merely feigning obsequiousness, he had placed the peacock “en l’asquiele,” which Bayot emends to “en l’escuéle.” Logic would seem to demand that the bird be served on a platter, but it is barely possible that “Pasquiele” is a variant of eschiele, a ladder, so that Hugelin’s mischief would

involve his having placed the peacock on a ladder out of Gormont’s reach. If Bennett’s sorcerer-dwarf thesis has any validity, some magical trick might be lurking in these lines. Whatever happened, Gormont had not eaten the peacock, although it is not true that his jaw remained motionless, as Hugelin claims (1. 246): Puis s’escria li reis Gormund: “Trop estes vantez, bricun! Jeo te conois assez, Hugon, 4 Phillip E. Bennett, “Le Personnage de Hugelin dans Gormont et Isembart,” 31-32. > Horrent, Explication 72-73 n. 4, commenting on Voyage, Il. 580-88. 6 Aebischer concurs that Aimer is invisible. See editor’s note to Il. 580ff., g1—92.

LATENCIES 153 qui, lautrir, fus as pavilluns; si me servis de mun poun que n’en mui unkes le gernun, si pur folie dire nun; e le cheval a mun barun en amenas par traisun.” (Il. 255-63)

Thus Gormont had opened his mouth, but only to speak folly (1. 261). We can conjure up sheer trickery, with De Vries, or we can recall those boasting contests so common in Norse sagas. The passage also echoes ancient slanging matches like the Old Irish Scéla Mucce Mac Da Thé. Finally, the incident might have been a sporting competition, an 7prott, in which Hugelin was able to win not only a peacock but apparently Isembart’s horse, although it is not clear whether Hugelin brings a horse (amenas in the manuscript) or takes it away (enmenas in Bayot’s critical text). ‘The succeeding lines hint at a physical clash, for Hugelin claims to have sliced off a section of a tunic and a piece of a fur cloak, whose owner he fails to identify: Jeo n’ai trenché ke l’alqeton e un petit del pelicon. (Il. 271-72)

Hugelin cannot be referring to the battle in progress, for he has not yet delivered a blow. In the ensuing combat, Hugelin loses his life, only to be replaced by his

- nephew Gontier, who had accompanied him in the ambassadorial party. From Gontier we learn more about the earlier incident. As he taunts Gormont, he also gives him unwelcome news. During the embassy he had stolen a golden ewer that he subsequently donated to the Abbey of SaintRiquier. There it had withstood the fire, thus constituting proof of the insult perpetrated against Gormont: “Sire Gormund, rei dreiturer, Conoisterez l’esquier qui a vostre tref fud l’autrer ove Hue, le messagier? Jo’n aportai le nef d’or mier; cele mis jo a seint Richier. Que vus arsistes sun mustier, mesavenir vus en deit bien!” (Il. 346-53)

154 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE One can easily assume that, while his uncle had kept Gormont occupied with the peacock and other matters, Gontiers had made off with a highly valued feature of the invaders’ table setting. These events, skimpily related after the fact, appear, like Vivien’s vow, to reverse the gab order: The boast is accomplished before it is spoken. Here the gab does not consist in the previous day’s activities (De Vries’s view), but in the taunts thrown in Gormont’s face in the heat of battle.

2. The Gab in Courtly Romance While manifestations of proud or drunken boasting never earn the name gab in the texts just surveyed, such behavior is often associated with the term in courtly romance. Semantic fields overlap, whatever tag is applied to the activity. Thus, referral backwards to a past act rather than forward to a promised feat is characteristic of Fenice’s use of the word in Chrétien’s Cligés. She employs gab in much the way De Vries conceived it: a trick, a

deception, a feint, but without the connotation of boasting. For her it merely labels her act, the feigning of death: “Amis, amis, je ne sui pas

Del tot morte, mes po an faut. De ma vie mes ne me chaut. Je me cuidai gaber et faindre, Mes or estuet a certes plaindre, Car la morz n’a soing de mon gap. Mervoille iert, se vive an eschap, Car trop m’ont li mire bleciee, (il. 6184~91)”’

Since Fenice is emerging from a swoon, and her sole interlocuter is Cligés, all semblance of bragging is absent and gap acts rather as a synonym of faindre, as |. 6187 shows.

Cligés also contains the hint of a boast, though surely no gad, in the murmured declaration Gauvain makes to himself after the succession of victories won by the disguised Cligés: Et mes sire Gauvains a dit Que tel josteor mes ne vit, Et por ce qu’il voldroit avoir

°7 Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes: I. Cligés, ed. Alexandre Micha, CFMA.

LATENCIES 155 S’acointance et son non savoir, Dit qu’il iert, ’andemain, premiers A Vasanbler des chevaliers. Mes il ne se vante de rien, Eincois panse et si cuide bien Que tot le mialz et les vantences Avra cil au ferir des lences, Mes a l’espee, puet cel estre, Ne sera il mie ses mestre, C’onques ne pot mestre trover. (Il. 4835-47)

Favati (45) notes this elegant, subdued “boast” (that Gauvain may lose with

the lances but never with the sword) and contrasts it with Roland’s unashamed bragging. The courtly romance, in which modesty and manners tend to dominate

knightly behavior, is less likely to engender latent gabs than the epic, to which unrestrained, emotional boasting is entirely suitable. One famous exception stands out. Keu the seneschal, as early as the Chevalier au lion, becomes almost the epitome of the gabeor.”* Although his earlier appearance in Frec et Enide reveals his insolence and contrasts his awkward attempts to observe the chivalric code to Gauvain’s shrewd courtly demeanor, the word gab is not associated with the episode. Keu’s first appearance in French literature hints at his earlier prestige in Welsh tradition, where he is one of the two figures associated most early with Arthur (the other being Bedwer). Chrétien places him among those famous knights who appear at Arthur’s court in Evec et Enide to hunt the White Stag (I. 317), and later to honor the arrival of Erec and Enide (1. 1506).”? His prestige is heightened by his constant association with Gauvain, and he acts as a polite ambassador

to the queen (ll. 1087ff.). But his harshness emerges when he seizes the reins of Erec’s horse without the appropriate greeting and officiously demands that the wounded knight identify himself. Erec, offended, refuses to reveal his name. Keu’s bluntness and cold logic lead to his humiliation, while Gauvain manages to save the situation through courteous behavior. Using courtly logic, Gauvain provides shelter for Erec, which allows Erec to keep his oath never to swerve from his path until he has accomplished his goal (Il. 3945-4132). In Yvain, however, Keu’s action and speech entail the introduction of many gab ingredients. In fact, they inspired Tobler’s seminal study of boast8 Curiously, Keu is absent from Chrétien’s Cligés. 2° References are to the edition of Mario Roques.

156 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE ing and drinking motifs in medieval Romance literature.*° Keu’s taunting of Yvain defines the gab; it echoes the scenes of the French in Constantinople and of the Jomsvikings at King Sveinn’s court when they pronounce their fatal heitstrengingar: “Bien pert quil est aprés mangier,” Fet Kes, qui teire ne se pot. “Plus a paroles an plain pot De vin, qu’an un mui de cervoise. Lan dit que chaz saous s’anvoise. Aprés mangier sanz remuér Va chascuns Noradin tuér, Et vos iroiz vangier Forré! Sont vostre panel anborré Et voz chauces de fer froiiees Et voz banieres desploitiees? Or tost, por De, mes sire Yvain! Movroiz vos anuit ou demain?” (Il. 5g0-602)?!

Keu insinuates that Yvain required a large dose of food and drink before he could boast that he would avenge his cousin’s shame at the Magic Fountain. The seneschal further ascribes Yvain’s promise to wine, rather than beer. No particular beverage is otherwise mentioned at this celebration, which happens to be on the feast of Pentecost (1. 6), but it can be assumed that at “cele feste qui tant coste” (I. 5) the wine flowed abundantly. The 30’Tobler assembled several classes of texts that display various attitudes toward boasts: (1) the unreliability of drunken vows; (2) the occasional sincerity associated with vaunting as, say, in the Roland; (3) promises uttered in the presence of women; (4) admonitions against the vanity of bragging; (5) pronouncements that compromise women’s honor. The works mined by Tobler include Chrétien’s Yuain, Odo of Cheriton’s Fables, Rutebeuf’s Complainte d’Outremer, Les Voeux du héron, Aubert le Bourgignon, The Second Continuation of Perceval, La Conquéte de Férusalem, Le Voyage de Charlemagne, Roland, Gaydon, Meraugis de Portlesguez, Jean Bodel’s Chanson des Saisnes, the Novellino (13th c.),

and Hugues Capet; in sum, a helter-skelter collection of mostly French texts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with a side glance at Latin and Italian examples and at the fourteenth century. Lommatzsch added from Tobler’s marginal notes in his personal copy of the article further passages from Rutebeuf (who habitually complained about drunken promises to join the Crusades), Claris et Laris, Sone de Nansai, Ciriffo Calvaneo, and the Roman de Thébes. See Adolf Tobler, “Exegetisches,” and E. Lommatzsch, “Zum Ritterbrauch des Prahlens.” 3\ Kristian von Troyes: Yuain (Der Lowenritter), ed. Wendelin Foerster. The CFMA edition is unsatisfactory for this analysis.

LATENCIES 157 scene that Chrétien dramatizes in detail echoes that earlier feast day when Roland boasted that he would remain facing the enemy even after death. Reminiscences of the epic reappear in the mention of killing Noradin (1. 596), the Sultan Nureddin Mahmud (1146-73), who acquired fame as ruler

of Syria and conqueror of the Turks in Asia Minor. His fame reached Western Europe through contact with Baudoin II of Jerusalem. To kill such a formidable military leader was considered an impossible feat, and according to Le Gentil the phrase tuer Noradin had become emblematic for undertaking a difficult task without having given it sufficient thought.*” ‘To avenge Forré (1. 597) would have meant to vanquish Charlemagne himself, since it was the emperor who had destroyed this pagan king.*? In Le

Gentil’s view, the victim of the insult is therefore accused of wishing to punish one of the great heroes of history. Thus Keu is attempting to demonstrate that Yvain lacks mesure, that his considering such an enterprise

shows that he is mentally unstable. Le Gentil appears to be correct in maintaining that the insult vengier Forré, as well as its companion tuer Noradin, tarns against the insulter (Le Gentil, 314). Keu prods Yvain: Are his saddle-bags ready, his iron boots polished, his banners displayed? Will he depart forthwith or wait till the morrow? Keu’s behavior is amply condemned as a “ramposne,” both in this instance and in the earlier moments when he chides Calogrenant for rising in the queen’s presence (Il. 69-85,

Foerster edn.). |

Chrétien first links the word gab to Keu in Lancelot, and from that point on romancers will habitually rely on the word, or its derivatives, whenever

the seneschal commits one of his infractions against the social code. In Lancelot’s opening episodes, Keu schemes to be allowed to fight the unknown intruder by pretending to leave Arthur’s service, to which the king replies: “Est ce a certes ou a gas?” Et Kex respont: “Biax sire rois, Je n’ai or mestier de gabois, (Il. g8—100)*4

The association here is with truth or lie, but Keu’s motivation is a warrior’s pride. Surely, as scholars have observed for decades, Keu is a Roland among 2 Pierre Le Gentil, “Vengier Forré,” esp. 312. See also L. F. Flutre, Tables des noms propres ... figurant dans les romans . . . (Poitiers, 1962). 3 Cf. note to this line in Foerster edition, 284. The Anonymous Old French Translation of the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle contains an account of the battle in chap. 20. See Ronald N. Walpole, ed., 60. 34 Te Chevalier de la charrette, ed. Mario Roques, CFMA.

158 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE the knights of the Round Table. Bragging and pretentiousness come to be inherent in Keu’s behavior, and he inevitably pays the consequences for his rash statements, just as Charles and the Peers were made responsible for their boisterous declarations. Furthermore, Keu’s ploy in the Chevalier de la charrete occurs at court, on a feast-day (the feast of the Ascension), and after dinner. In fact, Keu had supervised the serving of the meal and was seated at the banquet table when the unknown knight barged into the room (Il. 43-46). Most occurrences of gab (and of the verb gaber) in Le Conte du graal are linked to Keu. When Keu mocks the young Welshman, Arthur at first relies on ramprosnez (1010) to reprimand him, then settles on gaber (1017). Later, as Chrétien contrasts Keu’s handsome appearance with his vile words, gab as the key to his behavior wins out over ramprosne: Et Kex parmi la sale vint Trestoz desaffublez et tint En sa main destre un bastonet, El chief un chapel de bonet Dont li chaveil estoient blont. N’ot plus bel chevalier el mont, Et fu trechiez a une trece; Mais sa biauté et sa proéce Empiroient si felon gap. (Il. 2793-2801)35

All those present, both knights and ladies, fear Keu’s gabs, which the Count

of Flandres Phillip would never tolerate, as Chrétien emphasizes in his Prologue: Li quens est teus qui il n’escoute Vilain gap ne parole estoute, (Il. 21-22)

Perceval lacks the discernment of both the Count and the members of Arthur's court, for he listens to and takes seriously Keu’s gab, which the king relates post rem to Gauvain: Et Kiex, qui anieus estoit Et est encor et toz jors iert Ne ja nul bien dire ne quiert, 35 All references, unless otherwise noted, are from Le Conte du graal, ed. William Roach.

LATENCIES 159 Li dist: “Frere, li rois te done Les armes, si tes abandone Que maintenant les ailles prendre.” Cil qui ne sot le gab entendre Cuida que cil voir li deist; (Il. 4114-21)

The gab, for Arthur, is a lie, but for Perceval, who believes it, it becomes a challenge, a command to be followed, acted out, accomplished. Prowess is transferred to Perceval, just as Keu projected a boast onto Yvain. Both heroes wind up accomplishing the transformed gab, while Keu continues to pay for his insolent words. In all cases the speech act entails responsibility.

Chrétien’s continuators maintain the link between Keu and the gab. During the siege of the Chastel Orgelleus, the seneschal has unwittingly lost a joust because he stepped out of bounds. Nevertheless, he believes he has won, which inspires his companions to tease him about his error: Au roi dient si compaignon: “Sire, por Dieu, et cor alon Encontre Ke por lui gaber;” (Il. 11655-57)°°

The knights ask permission to “gab” Keu, thus observing the rules of courtesy portrayed by Chrétien, and the king himself speaks first to taunt the seneschal. Following him are Thors, Gauvain, Yvain: Chascuns le gabe a son pooir Et il le set trestot de voir. (Il. 11687—88)

When Keu insists on sharing his victory with Yvain, the crowd laughs because he is still unaware of his failure: Cil qui li ofrent dire Ne se porent tenir de rire. Einsi gabant l’en ont mené Au paveillon et desarmé. (Il. 11697—700) 36 The Continuations of the Old French “Perceval” of Chrétien de Troyes, ed. William Roach, vol. 1, The First Continuation, Redaction of MSS T, V, D.

160 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE In all these cases, the verb rather than the noun describes the activity, thereby eliminating in effect the kind of speech act on which we are focused, but I note nevertheless a distant echo of the gabs in Constantinople in that a hierarchy is followed. ‘The monarch allows the “game” to begin, just as Charles announced the gab session. Arthur initiates the taunts, just as Charles claimed the privilege of broaching the gabs. The atmosphere is joyous and the time is apparently evening, but lacking are wine, food, and above all, boasting. In the Second Continuation the scene is repeated summarily with variations: Keu jousts first and is wounded: Assez ont ris dou senechal Li chevalier par an derriere Por ce qu’a la joste premiere, Voient mil chevaliers ou plus, Fu de son cheval abatuz. Meismes le rois an gaba, (Il. 26976-81)?”

The Didot-Perceval continues the linkage, but still using the verb rather than the noun. Keu rattles the queen by claiming that the Ugly Damsel is beautiful, and the moment Keu invites his companions to gather together, they commence “gabbing.” “Et Kex vint au roi et as barons, et lor dist que il le venissent veoir; et li rois et li baron s’en vinrent as fenestres avuec la roine, et commencierent a gaber.” Keu’s jesting has obviously made them laugh. ‘Che author explains in the next sentence: “Et il en commencierent tot a rire et a faire grant joie.”** If gaber here verges on meaning simply ‘to converse’, the following scene reinstates its value of ‘mockery’, and indeed mimics Chrétien’s association of gab with Keu. The seneschal taunts the knight accompanying the Ugly Damsel. He warns the queen that Arthur might prefer this woman to her and, with tongue still in cheek, rushes to the king with the suggestion that the knight be requested to go fetch more ladies in the place where he found her. The angry Arthur reprimands Keu: “cou est grans vilenie de gaber un estrange cevalier,” (193), words that echo Chrétien: “Vilonnie est d’autrui gaber” (Perceval, 1. 1017). Throughout the association with Keu, gab (and its verbal reflex) normally reflect pejorative connotations: insulting, mocking, lying, and especially false seriousness. But Chrétien, in Perceval, hints that a meliorative, even courtly, activity may be indicated, if the word is dissociated from Keu.

37 The Continuations, ed. William Roach, vol. 4, The Second Continuation. 38 The Didot-Perceval, ed. William Roach, 192.

LATENCIES 161 When Perceval first approaches Arthur’s castle, he meets the Red Knight, who tells the young Welshman, among other things, that the king had been drinking wine (I. 896). When Perceval enters the room, he finds the knights seated around the dinner table: Et li rois Artus ert assis Au chief de la table pensis, Et tuit li chevalier rioient Et li un as autres gaboient (Il. go7—10)

We recognize the coupling “ris et gab” so common in Old Occitan poetry, but just what were the table companions relating to each other: tall tales, jokes, banter, boasts? The activity is obviously a source of amusement, and at opposite poles from the insults associated with Keu. ‘This joyous “custom” inspires a sequel in the First Continuation, in that very episode in which Keu is “gabbed” by his companions during the siege of the Chastel Orguelleus. It is a June night, but the evenings are cool:*? Quant vint le soir vers la froidour, Si alerent trestout jouer. Molt par faisoit bel escouter Les gaites des tors qui cornoient, En pluisors sens se deduisoient. Ainc Dex cel estrument ne fist C’a mestier de gaite avenist, Que laiens n’oisiés souner. Lors oisiés les uns hier, Et li autre s’entredisoient De bons gas, car trop en savoient. Li rois en laisoit a dormir Pluisors nuis por les gas oir. (MS L, ll. 5666-78)”

39 Roach has inserted the concordance numbers provided by Potvin in all three redactions. The reader may consult any volume of his edition of the First Continuation; the passage under study begins at Potvin, 18500 and the first quoted line is Potvin, 18560.

40 The Continuations, ed. William Roach, vol. 3, pt. 1, The First Continuation, [Short] Redaction of MSS A, L, FE, R, S.

162 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE In the Long Redaction (MSS EMQ), Arthur is so fascinated by the gabs that he orders the sentinels to stop playing their instruments: Li rois toz taire les fesoit, Car li deduiz molt li plesoit Des bons gas qu'il s’antredisoient Les gaites qui la sus estoient. (Il. 15643-46)*

In this same version, they listen until late in the night, then return to their tents to drink (more wine?) and go to bed: Grant joie demoinent et font De ses diz cil qui illeuc sont. Et quant l’orent assez gabé, Au pavaillon sont retorné, Si boivent et puis vont gesir, Car il n’avoient d’el desir; La nuit ont trespassee ainsi. (Il. 15667~-73)

In the nocturnal setting, the knights relax by listening to gabs recounted not by their own number but by the watchmen, who, like the “gaite de la tor” in the famous aube, are talented enough to play a variety of musical instruments.” The scene is reminiscent of festivities portrayed in Flamenca and its tributary Joufroi de Poitiers, in both of which the storytellers are identified as jongleurs.¥ In Foufroi the festivities take place after a tournament (I. 1069); in the First Continuation, the event occurs near the Feast of St. John (Long, |. 15530), as it does in Flamenca (in which the audience enjoyed hearing of ‘Tintagel [l. 471]), the Lai du Chéevrefeuille, Erec et Enide, Cligés, the Chevalier au Lion, the Chevalier a la Charrette, the Conte du Graal, 4! The Continuations, ed. William Roach and Robert H. Ivy, Jr., vol. 2, The First Continuation, Redaction of MSS E, M, Q, U. * During this session, Keu intervenes to request the right to do battle on the jousting field the next day. ‘The narrator labels Keu’s intrusion an opinion rather than a boast (1.

15653), but indicates that the seneschal cannot restrain himself while others are telling their gabs (Potvin, 18575ff.). The pertinent matter here is the activity, not Keu’s habitual discourtesy. An edition of the aube may be found in Karl Bartsch’s Chrestomathie de Pancien francais, 12th ed., piece 47, 167-68. 3 Flamenca, ed. and trans. René Lavaud and René Nelli, The Troubadours, |. 592; Joufroi de Poitiers, ed. Percival B. Fay and John L. Grigsby, |. 1148. Cf. Faral, Jongleurs, app. 3, for a massive list of texts in which jongleurs are mentioned.

LATENCIES 163 the Bel Inconnu, the Roman de Lancelot, Charlemagne’s exploits, and Mar-

cabru’s songs, among others (Il. 596-705). The attention Arthur pays to the sentinels’ gabs and the resemblance to the scene in Flamenca in which jongleurs recite famous medieval narratives are clues that the gabs related in

the outskirts of the Chastel Orguelleus are more than mere boasts. What could persuade King Arthur to order the cessation of music, or to remain awake listening night after night to this group of watchmen, unless their recitation included narratives of suspense and action like a chanson de geste, a courtly romance, or some of the tales mentioned by Flamenca’s author? What concerns us in the redactions of the First Continuation is the association of gab with sustained speech, as if it did indeed label a literary genre,

or oral literature in general. ‘Though we do not know the contents of the gabs that fascinated Arthur for several nights, I perceive an attitude and valuable clue to a mode of literature, or at least to its inception, for the watchmen are not professional jongleurs and their gabs are not identified specifically as chanson de geste, lai or roman. The gabs seem to be protoliterature, perhaps unrefined, perhaps very personal; buds ready to flower provided the conditions are right. Thus the gab remains allied with entertainment, after-dinner amusement, despite its broad semantic net that can include the spiteful vanity of a Keu. The seneschal is a throwback to the old order, Neuschafer’s “grobschlachtiger Haudegen,” an uncouth warrior ill-adapted to the courtly milieu, an anachronism in the constantly changing literature that reflects society.*t In courtly romance, it was inevitable that women would begin to play a role in boasting sessions, just as Queen Wealhdeow participated in the ceremonies with Beowulf. In Meraugis de Portlesguez, a knight relates an episode organized by Patris de Cabrahan to celebrate Easter in which the knights attempt to outdo each other’s vows in the presence of the ladies:

Luns por autre par aatie Firent veuz. Oéz que vouerent: Ojianz les dames se vanterent De chevaleries, si dist Guivrez qui le premier veu fist Que de tot I’an ne porteroit Hauberc ne heaume, ainz josteroit ‘Toz desarmez fors de l’escu.

Li granz Riolenz qui la fu Voa que ja mes ne gerroit

+4 Neuschafer, 92.

164 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE En covert devant qu’il avroit Ocis chevalier en bataille. Li Lez Hardiz de Cornoaille Fu a la cort: cil se dona As dames et aprés voa Que ja pucele de si loing Nel requerroit a son besoing Quw’il n’i alast sanz conseil prendre.

(Il. 1778-93)"

The narrator emphasizes from the start that ladies heard these vows. If Guivret, Riolant, and, later on, the cruel Seguradés are satisfied to boast of performances to be accomplished on the field of battle, the Laid Hardi of Cornwall introduces women into his vow. Gaheriet follows with a gab reminiscent of Olivier’s: Whenever he meets a knight in the coming year,

he will obtain a kiss from his lady or wear him down in combat. The knightly narrator, who has just been vanquished by the protagonist, omits further details about the event, but we can assume that it occurred during or after mealtime, since the king, he assures us, “tint—a Pasques avra _I. an—Cort si riche qu’onques ne fu Plus riche” (Il. 1770-72). The paucity of details supplied by the narrator neither confirms nor denies the presence of such features as free-flowing wine, nearness of bedtime, or a hierarchical order of participation, or even how seriously the vows are intended. The

boasts do have in common with those at both Constantinople and the Chastel Orguelleus the trait that they do not serve to summon up courage before battle, unlike those of the Saracens at Roncesvals. Although lacking the structure I have linked to the gabs, the boasts, or “euerredons,” in the prose Lance/ot merit mention here, for they continue the association of ladies with knightly achievement and echo the chivalric boasting in Meraugis de Portlesguez.** In true Arthurian fashion, a hero, Bohort, has vanquished a string of adversaries, rescued ladies, and earned the admiration of all at a tournament (at the Chateau de la Marche). After the jousting, an elegant banquet features the serving of courses in studied hierarchical order. First “the Twelve Peers” bring Bohort a dish, kneeling before him, then sit down. They bring out a second platter for the ladies, while the king and his knights serve a third. Maidens continue the service, leaving the spices (the dessert) to be distributed by the king’s daughter. Wine is not mentioned. Indeed, the sobriety of Bohort’s response to the king’s demands hints that no one had overindulged in alcohol. After the ** Raoul de Houdenc, Meraugis von Portlesguez, ed. Mathias Friedwagner. ‘6 For the text see Le Livre del Lancelot del Lac, pt. 2, ed. H. Oskar Sommer, 266-67.

LATENCIES 165 banquet, the daughter requests that each of the Twelve Peers offer her a gift for her services: “Lors sen ua la damoisele a la table as .xij. pers. Et dist au premier chevalier. Sire iou vous ai serui si voldra sauoir sil vous plaist quel guerredon vous men rendrois” (266). Kallas le Petit brags that he will joust for a year with his right leg on his horse’s neck and will send her the armor of the vanquished. ‘Talibors aux Dures Mains promises to set up his tent in a forest and conquer ten warriors whose chargers he will relinquish to her. Alpharsar will dispatch the helmets of ten foes before he enters any castle. Sarduc le Blanc will sleep with no woman until he has transmitted the swords from four defeated enemies to the king’s daughter. Melior de l’Espine will entrust her with the lady of any lord he meets. Angoire le Fel will present to the princess the heads of his adversaries. Patrides au Cercle d’Or will kiss the damsel of any horseman he happens to meet. Meldon l’Envoisié will combat without his halberk for a month and deliver to her his enemies’ steeds. Garingan le Fort will turn over to her the shields of those he ambushes at the Ford of the Wood. Malquin le Gallois promises to win over the most beautiful damsel he encounters and surrender her to the princess. Agrocol le Beau Parleur will conquer ten opponents, clad only in his lady’s chemise and wimple.*” Le Laid Hardi will ride for a year without reins on his horse and will donate to her the belt and purse of all those he defeats. The princess finally approaches Bohort. He promises to be her vassal and, when he finishes his quest, to rescue Gueniévre. Bohort’s guerredon constitutes the thirteenth boast, a number coincidental with the thirteen gabs in the Voyage, which number should obviously be considered a topos rather than a reminiscence. The princess’s infatuation with Bohort and their subsequent love-making are connected to the boasting only in chronological sequence rather than through cause

and effect. Her attraction to Bohort recalls the amorous adventures of Gauvain (or Tristan, Erec, Cligés, or Lancelot), but those of Olivier only in the barest superficiality (the host’s daughter falls in love with the handsome stranger). The boasting session is an interlude that generates no further action in the story. It fails to engender the responsibility that 1s a necessary component of the gab, since the Peers are not held accountable for their words. The boasts function as a playful means of thanking the hostess, in a situation in which courtesy reigns. 47 A certain Jacques de Baisieux relates the tale of a valiant young knight who jousts in his lady’s blouse in Les Trois Chevaliers et le chainse, trans. Robert Guiette, Pabliaux et contes (Paris, 1981), 213-28. Curiously, La Curne de Sainte-Palaye found a relationship between this fabliau and Les Voeux du héron. See his edition of the latter. Once again the sensitivity of critics seems to link together apparently disparate atoms around a nucleus that represents a latent awareness of the gab as a literary structure.

166 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Participants in courtly boasting use the custom for many purposes, but mainly to bolster their egos before or during combat, to vie for the favors of ladies, to provide a festive game-like pastime, or to show off their personal triumphs, past or future, under the glow of the wine or beer they have consumed. If the author of Meraugis de Portlesguez fails to provide many details, the otherwise second-rate poet of Sone de Nansai was meticulous enough in his descriptions to convince Nyrop that his tale documents the ancient ceremony of heitstrenging. Nyrop denied that the custom embedded in the text resembled the gabs, even though the evidence he uncovered refutes his claim.** He neglected to explore the ramifications of the gabs, which he considered as “aggiunti solo per divertire” (118), for as we saw in our survey of Norse literature (chap. 2), boasting (especially in the form called mannjafnadr) was not only a means of amusement for Vikings on a long winter’s night, but warriors relied on ritual boasts to stimulate the flow of adrenalin. Sone’s adventure among the Norwegians, furthermore, recalls the braga and the Beowulf flyting, two congeners that eluded Nyrop, whose goal was to prove that Sone de Nansai’s author actually visited Norway. Just as the Scyldings’ coast guard greeted Beowulf and invited him to Hrodgar’s hall, so also the Norwegian king descends to the port and welcomes the foreigner to the festivities at his court: Li fil le roi ont Sone pris,

Bas sont a une escame*? assis. 3264

Dont veissies mes aporter Aussi c’on les puisast en mer. Chiervoise et vin partout avoit;

Car lor coustume telle estoit. 3268

Longement sisent au mangier ‘Tant qu’assés peiist anuijer Qui ensi ne l’etist usé.*°

Car il se sont si abuvré 3272 Que cascuns sa fable contoit,

Leur nus fors lui ne l’escoutoit.*! Tant erent en grant de parler,

Nus ne péust tout escouter. 3276 48 Nyrop, Storia dell’Epopea francese, 118. ° E’scame: bench.

50 “They sat so long eating that it would thoroughly have bored anyone who was not used to it.” 51 “So no one but he was listening to it” (?).

LATENCIES 167 Li tiers du jour fu en mangier. Cascuns estoit en haubregier,* Lescu au col, ou poing l’espee.

Toute ert Irlande a mort livree. 3280 Et ensi que cascuns disoit, Que li rois d’Escoche 1 venrroit Et seroit li premiers tués;

“Ses freres qu’est enprisonnés 3284

N’en istera, ce ne puet iestre, ‘Tant que Dieus sauve men brach diestre.” Ensi partout se combatoient

Et puis le hanap enbrachoient. 3288

Sones, qui n’avoit ce usé, Les a a mierveille esgardé. Mieus amast son cheval veyr

Que chiaus le hanap rasseyr.°*? 3292

Leur hanas tout adiés aloit, Jouste et bataille furnissoit. Li fil le roi Sone mout prient

Par amours que ne li poist nient.** 3296 “Ensi wellent le tamps passer En boire, en mangier, en parler; En manechier chiaus qui n’i sont

Lusage de lor pays font. 3300 Et se premerains vous levies, D’yaus honnis et blasmés series.”*

Nyrop discerned a /eitstrenging in the above passage because of the following characteristics: (1) war is imminent; (2) as the enemy army approaches, the king has gathered the warriors together for a sumptuous meal to which they come fully armed; (3) as they fill themselves with beer they begin to

pronounce boastful vows (Nyrop identifies them as “voeux fanfarons,” 558); (4) they brag of their future victories over their Scottish and Irish adversaries. We have seen (chap. 2) that heitstrengingar need not take place 32 “Each was wearing his hauberk.” 53 “Ffe would have preferred to see his horse than (to see) them set down their mugs,” i.e., he would rather have been elsewhere. *4"The editor notes in his glossary (634) that mient can be monosyllabic; so also is

prient, obviously a present participle. Fritz Hummel called attention to the poet’s occasional difficulty in adhering to the octosyllabic line. See Zu Sprache und Verstechnik des

“Sone de Nausay,” 58.

55 Sone von Nausay, ed. Moritz Goldschmidt, 2 16.

168 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE just before battle, but that vows can lead to war, unwittingly so for the Jomsvikings. And in that very episode in which King Sveinn tricked the Vikings into vowing to invade Norway, none was clothed in war gear. The custom that Sone encounters is surely, as Nyrop maintains, a eitstrenging, but in a variant form, and thus probably better identified with the umbrella term preferred by Clover: flyting. Although the naive traveler Sone was astounded by the drinking and was warned that he might incur shame if he were the first to rise and leave the table (Il. 3301-2), it is risky to claim, as Nyrop did, that “au XIII€ siécle les Francais avaient depuis longtemps perdu l’usage de prononcer des voeux en buvant” (559), for this is a usage that has not entirely disappeared from Western Europe. In his

zeal to prove that the Sone author traveled in Norway, Nyrop erred by claiming that this scene “différe tout a fait de celles des chansons de geste ou les chevaliers s’amusent 4 ‘gaber’ ” (559), especially since there exists only one poem that could fit into the category he casually mentions: the Voyage de Charlemagne. He may be correct, on the other hand, to insist that traits of the scene place the activity in the heyday of the Vikings, and in any case before 1050. One aspect remains certain: the custom is reported in French literature of the thirteenth century and consequently attests to the existence in latency of the generic structure we have called gab. If Nyrop had linked the rest of the episode to Beowulf he would have had even more grist for his mill, for the Norwegian king’s daughter mimics the rdle that Queen Wealdeow played as soon as Breca and Beowulf finished their flyting. ‘The following lines from Sone de Nansai recall Hrodgar’s queen, “mindful of customs,”** when she circulated among the thanes with

the cup of mead and finally stopped before Beowulf, who, after he drank, boasted that he would accomplish a manly deed: Ensi que il se devisoient

Et de pluiseurs coses parloient, 3304 Li fille le roi a yalz vient, C’un grant hanap en sa main tient, Et devant yalz s’agenouilla

Et dist, ja ne s’en mouvera, 3308 Si averont tout but le vin Et delivré le maserin.*’

Chelle premiers a commenchié; | Apriés l’a a Sone baillié, 3312 Si dist: “Biau sire, bien buves

56 F.. ‘Talbot Donaldson so translates “cynna gemyndig” in Beowulf |. 613.

7 Drinking cup.

LATENCIES 169 Par chelle foi que mi deves.” Sones lor us pas ne savoit,

Si dist que ja n’i buveroit 3316

‘Tant qu'elle fust agenouillie;

Ne set rien de tel courtoisie. Li fieus le roi dist: “Si feres

U ja seriés de tous blasmés. 3320

A nostre usage hounour vous fait, Si le prendes a peu de plait. Bien sachies que fille est le roi.

Si sommes si frere ambedoi.” 3324

Quant Sones entent lor usage, Bien li sanle plains de musage.** Le coupe a la puchielle prist,

I. boire 1 out qui poi Ii sist. 3328

Mais ne dist pas quan qu'il pensoit, Awec les leus ensi ulloit. Et quant ot but, si l’a bailliét

Chelui awec cui a mangiét. 3332

Chilz but, son frere le bailla, Et chilz tost la coupe vuida*’ Si l’a la puchielle baillie.

Lors s’est sur ses piés redrechie. 3336 Puis dist: “Signour, vostre mierchi Du boire biel, c’avés fait chi.”

Rajna sketched out the affinity that Beowulf’s boast had with the gabs at Constantinople, but he seems to have been unaware of the similarities between Queen Wealhdeow and the Norwegian princess in Sone de Nansai. Coincidentally, both poets label the lady’s performance as a “courtesy”: courtoisie in Sone (3318) and cynna in Beowulf (613).

Nyrop found more evidence of a link to Germanic context in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae (VI, 12), in which the Saxon princess Renwein comes out of her chambers just as the Britons are completing the sumptuous meal her father has prepared for them. She kneels before the guest with a golden goblet filled with wine and toasts his health. 58 Folly, dissipation.

°°’The manuscript reading for |. 3334 is et chilz tint la coupe meda. ‘The emendation is Gaston Paris’s in Romania 31:121. Goldschmidt (589) admitted that “meda” made no sense and suggested that an expression for ‘drinking’ was needed. © Pio Rajna, Le Origini delle Epopea Francese, 406.

170 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE The ritual is sealed with a kiss: “ab illo die usque in hodiernum mansit consuetudo illa in Britannia, quod in conviviis qui potat, ad alium dicit: Wacht heil' Qui vero post ipsum recipit potum, respondet: Drink heil!” (quoted by Nyrop, 561-62). If such customs did indeed persist until Geoffrey’s day, the role of women in festivities surely did not diminish as boasting sessions, i.e., gabs, found their way into courtly literature.

A little known allusion to the gab custom, and quite possibly to the Voyage, is embedded in the thirteenth-century romance foufroi de Poitiers.”

About halfway through the story, the author pauses to declare that he has translated the tale from a book he found in Saint-Pierre-de-Maguelonne, an episcopal village in what is today Hérault (ll. 2322-33). Hard on the heels of this claim, which forms part of a kind of second prologue, a new character named Robert is introduced, who the narrator assures us is the best knight of Joufroi’s household (2342-49). Between Robert and Joufroi springs up a rivalry that will dominate the remainder of the plot. Joufroi, bloated with pride over having received a case of jewels from an unknown female admirer, rides his prancing horse around a meadow, which inspires Robert to praise the magnificent charger. The vain Joufroi wonders what his companion thinks of the rider: Que redites vos del vasal, De moi, qui sor lui sui asis? Savez vos donc en nul pais Uns chevaliers meillor de moi? (Il. 2412-15)

These words echo Charles’s search for praise in the Voyage: Dame, veistes unkus hume dedusuz ceil ‘Tan ben seist espee, ne la corune el chef? (Il. g—10)

Robert’s reaction echoes that of Charles’s queen: He knows another who rivals his lord. Joufroi replies in surprise and anger: Deus, fait li cuens, vos lo savez? Je nel cuit pas! Or mel contez! Qui est il? que jel voil savoir, Si savrai si vos dites voir. (Il. 2423-26) ! Nyrop, “Sone de Nansai et la Norvége,” 555-69. °2 Foufroi de Poitiers, ed. Percival B. Fay and John L. Grigsby.

LATENCIES 171 Charles, too, in a similar fit of emotion, had demanded to know the identity

of his rival so as to test his measure. Robert names himself, adding that Joufroi appears worthier only because he can buy praise with his great wealth. Although the circumstances are not parallel in that the queen is addressing the putatively weaker party while Robert, himself the less wealthy rival, addresses the one who appears greater, the themes do march in tandem: the appearance of greatness comes from wealth (“Plus est riche

d’aver e d’or e de deners,” says the queen in |. 28). Both speakers are threatened, the queen with decapitation and Robert with expulsion, to which both reply that they were only joking: Ja sui ge vostre femme, si me quidai juer. (I. 34)

Robert’s words parallel the queen’s: Ja nel detisiez prendre a ire, Que par nul mal nel cuidai dire, Ainz me cuidoie a vos gaber. (ll. 2457-59)

Joke or not, neither of the challenged parties can resist testing the assertions. In a humorous scene, Joufroi divides wealth and war gear evenly with

Robert so that they can depart together for a yearlong competition in a country where neither is known. The count of Poitiers gives Robert precisely half of the material he allots for the trip: equipment, clothing, gold, silver, squires, vassals, and horses (2644-55). Robert exclaims his gratitude: Sire, fait il, cinc cent mercis! Ci a bel don, bien lo pois dire. (Il. 2679-80)

Again the words echo those of the Voyage. When Charles acknowledges

the patriarch’s praise in Jerusalem, just before he receives the relics, he blurts out: “Cin cenz mercis!” (1. 159). At this point in the two narratives, both Charles and Robert have acquired the instruments that will enable them to pursue their rivalries. Whether the Voyage had any influence on Joufroi must remain hypothetical, but the generative influence of the gab in literature cannot be

172 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE denied. One of its functions as a latent genre is to provide a means for initiating conflict at the beginning of a successful plot.® In sum, the gab in courtly romance reflects the semantic ramifications of the word as well as the boasting custom. In Cligés, Fenice uses the word to denote her trickery. For Chrétien and his continuators, gab is associated with Keu’s biting mockery. There is also the suggestion that from innocent

courtly conversation might have evolved a storytelling pastime. More loosely constructed manifestations of a gab motif appear in romances like Meraugis de Portlesguez, the prose Lancelot, Sone de Nansai, and Foufroi de Poitiers, although the last two texts contain echoes of the genre that is latent in the Voyage de Charlemagne. Women play a role, of varying importance, in all but Foufroz.

3. Reworkings and the Legend of Charlemagne’s Voyage The Voyage de Charlemagne preserved in the Anglo-Norman manuscript of the fourteenth century doubtless reflects most faithfully the tale that spread the fame of the gab, and thus of the structured latency that I have labeled in its honor. We must pause now and backtrack to trace the imprint left by this work. ‘Through remaniements, translations, adaptations, continuations, and allusions, the memory of the gabs was kept alive into the sixteenth century and beyond. Although these traditions attest to the memory of the gabs, or of the poem recounting Charlemagne’s journey, all but one of these texts (The Ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall) fail to manifest a regeneration of the gab as genre. Although Fierabras, which Bédier dates to 1170, remains a chanson de geste, its allusions to Charles’s drinking and boasting doubtless reflect the

tradition established in the early version of the Voyage. Einhard had portrayed Charles as a moderate drinker, but in Fierabras the emperor’s habits as a boastful imbiber are emphasized by both his own words and Roland’s reprimands: Charlemagne, surprised by Fierabras’s prowess, blurts out that he will neither eat nor drink claret until one of the peers has jousted with

6 In Chrétien’s Conte du graal Gauvain’s encounter with La Demoiselle aux petites manches is a precursor of the gab scene sketched in Joufroi. The younger sister, in order to thwart her elder’s self-serving claim that Melian de Liz is the best and most handsome knight one has ever set eyes on, boasts that she sees a better one (Roach edn., Il. 503139). The sisters’ slanging match initiates the combat between their two champions. When Gauvain wins out, the girl runs to him: “Cinc cens mile merchis, biax sire” (I. 5601), multiplying by a thousand the number of “thanks” granted by Charles’s empress and Robert. 6 Joseph Bédier, Les Légendes épiques, 3rd ed., 4:157.

LATENCIES 173 his new enemy.® When none of the peers offers to undertake the combat, Charles calls upon Roland, who replies that Charles has wronged the youth of his army by his boasts and complains that when the older knights had

to rescue the younger from the overwhelming pagan army, the drunken | Charles had bragged about it that evening: “Puis te vantas le soir, quant tu fus enivrés” (6). The poet goes on for some 6,000 rhymed alexandrines to relate glorious exploits, typical of a chanson de geste, in which relics recovered in Spain save the French (160) and are returned to Saint-Denis, where the Lendit is established to celebrate them (187). The narrator himself, in the Kroeber-Servois edition, calls his work first a canchon, then twice a roumant (188). It is certainly not a gab. The legend of Charles’s trip to the East was kept alive in several versions that circulated from as early as the Chronicle of Benedict of Mount Soracte to the vemaniements of the late Middle Ages, and in some cases into the seventeenth century. Most were concerned with the transfer of relics, although an occasional preoccupation with historical accuracy inspired Bau-

douin V, count of Hainaut (1171-95), to reject the imaginary stories of both the gabs and the jaunts to the Orient in the manuscripts he selected for his library.*’ The Oxford Roland mentions that Charles conquered Constantinople (I. 2329), and the Spanish Roncesvalles alludes to Charles’s subjugation of “Truquia,” or Turkey, after his passage through Jerusalem and

the Jordan.* These allusions are so brief that one can perceive no development of a gab scene. In the monastic tradition, gabs are normally absent from the manuscripts that have survived. In his discussion of the Karlamagnus saga, Aebischer reviews the thirteenth-century Speculum historiale of Vincent of Beauvais and Hélinand’s twelfth-century Chronicle, which, along with the Descriptio, served as a source for Vincent. Brief mention of the voyage, without gabs, occurs in the Chronicon of Alberic of ‘Trois Fontaines, the Gesta episcoporum Mettensium, and the Annales Marcabenses, all of

which date from the twelfth century. Branches I and X of the Karlamagniis saga also report versions of the legendary voyage without gabs. Aebischer’s thorough examination of this aspect of the tradition (see VN, chaps. 4-6, esp. 130-40) need not be repeated here. Menéndez Pidal has called attention to another Latin text lacking the boasts, the Chronicon Mundi, which Archbishop Don Lucas de Tuy composed in 1236. In that work, a monarch (Louis of France) is inspired to travel abroad because of doubts about his queen’s lineage. He disguises himself as a pilgrim and is welcomed in the 6° “Fierabras”: chanson de geste, ed. A. Kroeber and G. Servois, 5. 66 See the discussion by Bédier, 4:156—64. 67 See Walpole, ed., Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle, 28. 68 Jules Horrent, Roncesvalles: Etude sur le fragment de Navarra, \\. 70-73.

174 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE court of a wealthy king (Alfonso in Toledo). His doubts are resolved; the voyager returns home with a prize (a large emerald from Alfonso’s treasury)

and is reconciled with his wife.’ But when voyages to distant lands are linked to the memory of the gabs, attention is inexorably drawn to the shortest, yet most scandalous, of the boasts at Constantinople.

3.1 Olivier’s Gab Remembrance of the gabs of Charlemagne took two forms: continuation, and translation or adaptation. For continuators, no gab in the Voyage has been more tempting than Olivier’s. Seizing upon this boast, which was the most laden with potential consequences, they created a popular theme, the adventures of Olivier’s son Galien, which made its way into the Italian Renaissance via Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso and Orlando Innamorato. The second group of treatments comprises translations or adaptations of the Voyage itself.

Although Aebischer insisted that the night Olivier spent with Hugon’s daughter in the Voyage was chaste, the subsequent tradition belies his attempt to suppress Koschwitz’s |. 726: “Li quens ne li fist la nuit mes que xxx. feiz.””° The fruit of the gab’s execution was Galien le Restoré, a hero

who had replaced Roland in fame by the end of the Middle Ages. My purpose here is to follow the trail of the gab(s) sustained by this tradition rather than to detail the rich ramifications of the Galien story.’! The trail includes: 1) A lost original of the Chanson de Galien, composed late in the twelfth century.” 2) A series of remaniements in prose and verse from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in which the Galien was incorporated into the Geste de Monglane, since Garin de Monglane was Galien’s great-grandfather.”?

6 Ramon Menéndez Pidal, “Relatos poéticos en las crénicas medievales”; Martin de Riquer, Los cantares de gesta franceses, 228. Cf. John William Davis, “Le Pélerinage de Charlemagne and ‘King Arthur and King Cornwall’: A Study in the Evolution of a Tale,” 201-2. Davis has contributed an excellent survey of the gab custom in his dissertation. He too was convinced of its Scandinavian origins (86). 70 Aebischer edn., go-91. 71 Jules Horrent, La Chanson de Roland dans les littératures francaise et espagnole du moyen

age, 63-78, 377-411; Galien li Restorés, ed. Edmund Stengel; Peter FE. Dembowski, “Whom and What Did Galien Restore?”; and Hans-Erich Keller, “Les Aventures du fils d’Olivier 4 Roncevaux.” ”2 Jules Horrent, “Galien le Restoré” in Dictionnaire des Lettres francaises, le Moyen Age, ed. Georges Grente (Paris, 1964), 291-92. 3 See Horrent, Roland, 392; Dembowski, “Whom and What,” 86.

LATENCIES 175 3) The Cheltenham Galien in imperfect rhymed alexandrines from about 1490.’4

4) Bibliotheque de |’Arsenal 3351, a fifteenth-century prose version.” 5) Bibliothéque nationale de France, frangais 1470, a second prose version of the fifteenth century.” 6) A printed prose version dated 1500, published by Antoine Vérard in Paris.””

7) A second printed version incorporated into Guerin de Monglane, probably from the press of Jehan Trepperel. The text reproduces a fifteenthcentury version, according to Horrent.”® 8) A brief allusion in Ly Mireur des Hystors by Jean d’Outremeuse in the mid-fourteenth century.” g) A fourteenth-century Occitan poem, Ronsasvals.®° to) A fourteenth-century Italian romance in prose, at first entitled I/ Viaggio di Carlo Magno in Ispagna (by Ceruti), but renamed Li Fatti de Spagna by Ruggieri.*! 11) A late fifteenth-century Italian work in several versions, which Rajna called Uggeri il Danese.*

The disputes among scholars over the filiation of versions, both lost and extant, concern us less here than the tangible evidence that the gabs were remembered.®? One does note, however, that as the importance of Galien increases, the interest in gabs diminishes. This general tendency is typified in the narrator’s intervention in the prose version of Galien found in Arsenal 3351: “Seigneurs, or escoutez! Vous avez assez ouy les gabs qui furent jurez

par le roy Charlemaigne, par les douze pers, par Roland et Olivier, et

74 Le ‘Galien’ de Cheltenham, ed. David M. Dougherty and Eugene B. Barnes, x. ‘The

Cheltenham codex is now University of Oregon Library MS CB B 54. > Horrent, Roland, 72. 6 Thid., 73. 7 Thid., 75.

8 Tbid., 77-78. Horrent’s initial chapter contains the best disentanglement of these remaniements. His stemma on the relationships of lost versions (392) was accepted by Dembowski for his study of Galien in Olsfant. ”? Louis Michel, Les Légendes épiques carolingiennes dans Poeuvre de fean d’Outremeuse,

18-26. 80 Mario Roques, “Ronsasvals, poéme épique provengal,” Romania 58 (1932):1-28, 161-89; 66 (1940):43 3-80. 1 Antonio Ceruti, ed., I/ Viaggio di Carlo Magno tn Ispagna; Ruggero M. Ruggieri, ed., Li Fatti de Spagna. Cf. H.-E. Keller, “Aventures,” 242, 245. ®2 Pio Rajna, “Uggeri il Danese.” 83 Cf. Horrent; Keller, “Aventures”; Panvini; and Roques.

176 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE comment Dieu les garantit de mort contre le dict roy Huguon et Olivier engendra ung filz en celle Jaqueline, que eut nom Galien, lequel fut moult preux et souffrit moult de peine” (Stengel, 27. I have edited his transcription). Ihe essence of the Galien adventures is retained in the Cheltenham manuscript.** In both manuscripts, the gabs are relegated to a mere reminiscence, evoked when Galien identifies himself on the battlefield of Roncevaux. The voyage to the Near East is dispensed with rapidly in the opening laisses. Laughter has disappeared in this deadly serious text. Charles has no dispute with his wife, but simply orders a trip to the Holy Sepulcher: Car il avoit voué pour Roulant garder de grevance, Qui encontre Olivier fu en si grant balance.

| (Il. 8—9)*°

Charles’s vow is obscure in the Cheltenham Galien, but the remanieur of manuscript 1470 clarifies the allusion. Roland and Olivier had fought each other in Vienne. To save his nephew, Charles “voua a Dieu que s’il luy plaisoit garder de mort son nepveu Rolant en celle bataille quw’il yroit le Saint Sepulcre adorer.”** In Jerusalem, he finds the church doors bolted. In response to Charles’s prayer, God opens them in solemn acquiescence. ‘The emperor’s entry into the sealed area where the sacred chairs await is no trespass, for the thirteenth, in which Christ himself sat, beckons to him: La avoit XII chaeres faictes par grant maistrie; Avec la XII€ fut la XTIT€ establie,

Ce fut celle ou Dieu sist qui vint de mort a vie. Celle belle chaere que j’ay yci noncie Encontre Charlemainne maintenant s’umilie, Et Charles s’i assist, qui Dieu du cuer mercie, Pour la belle miracle que Dieu fist celle fie. (ll. 71-77)

*4'Though the Dougherty-Barnes edition is flawed, it provides a decipherable text. Stengel’s edition attempted to display all versions at once, a noble venture but frustrating for readers. See Dembowski’s review of Dougherty-Barnes in RPh 38 (1985):4. 8° Citations are drawn from the Dougherty-Barnes edition. 86 Eduard Koschwitz, Sechs Bearbeitungen, 73. MS 1470 is also more faithful in retaining the stopover in Constantinople, for there the queen disputes Charles’s claim to

be “le plus riche roy et le plus redoubté de toute Crestienté et de toute Paienné.” The emperor replies: “Et qui est il?” (K, 73). He will return via Constantinople “pour savoir s'il est verité de ce que la royne m’a compté” (K, 74).

LATENCIES 177 Saracens, rather than a Jew, announce Charles’s presence to the patriarch (I. 85). Immediately after receiving the relics, Charles departs for France, without the slightest mention of a night of drinking and boasting. In his haste to extinguish the gab episode, the remanieur runs into contradiction, for the report by Galien of the circumstances of his birth includes an allusion to the now suppressed episode of the gabs at Constantinople: J’ay nom Galien, ensement m’appell on; Filz suis a Jacqueline, la fille au roy Huguon, Qui de Constantinoble gouverne le royon, Ou vous feustés une foiz en grant confusion. Les gas y furent fais de mout riche baron, Ft la fus engendré, bien scavés la fachon. (Il. 1545-50)

The attempt to eliminate not only the apparently perceived vulgarity of Olivier’s boast but all the gabs is eloquent testimony to the genre and seriousness of Galien le Restoré: it mimics the serious, long epic. Indeed the word gab has all but disappeared from the Cheltenham version, the only other occurrence registered by the editors being in a second identification speech by the hero (3960-62), which is no more than a variation of the passage just cited. The lascivious aspect has survived in the prose versions, even though Charles and the Peers are portrayed more nobly than in the earlier poem. Drunkenness has been supplanted by insomnia. The French gab because they cannot sleep (K, 84). In manuscript 3351, Charles suggests that “l’un aprés l’autre deist quelque joieuse chose veritable ou mencongiere par maniere de gaberie, pour partie de celle nuit plus joieusement passer” (K, 53), a suggestion reminiscent of Arthur’s nights at the Chastel Orgueilleus. In both prose texts, Charles explains that the gabs are the custom in France (K, 63, 93), but in manuscript 1470 the emperor is less agreeable, for he stares so angrily at Hugon that the latter is overcome by fear (K, go). The relics are no longer the means of communicating with God. In manuscript 3351, Charles has a dream in which he is informed that Heaven has heard Olivier’s plea for help (K, 65), but in manuscript 1470, again more faithful

to the poem, an angel descends while the French are attending mass (K, 93-94). Olivier’s eagerness to accomplish his boast is apparent in both prose renderings. Hugo’s request in manuscript 1470 (K, 94) that Olivier perform , first becomes, in 3351 (K, 66), an offer on Olivier’s part. Olivier is able to complete the sexual act only twelve times, falling short of his public pledge, but Jacqueline bails him out, a bit more delicately in 3351 where she obtains

178 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE from her lover a promise of everlasting fidelity (K, 68). In 1470 Aymery throws a stone through the palace walls and ‘Turpin causes the city to be flooded (K, 96), but in 3351 two gabs suffice. After the damage to his palace,

Hugo is persuaded to cease demanding the accomplishment of the other gabs (K, 70-71), the reason being obviously that the remanieur wishes to get on with the story of Galien. Horrent concludes his discussion of the Galien corpus with the observation that “le travail de remaniement a été intense dans la tradition” (Roland, 390), but the variety betrays a nostalgia, a romanticism before its time, as these attempts lead toward a new vision of the Middle Ages. Dembowski is correct in seeing efforts to restore the past as characteristic of this period, a concept coincidentally and judiciously retained in the Galien epithet, “le restore(r)” (Olifant, 10:97). The phenomenon is one of chronicalization, in

which the fantasy of verse tends to be replaced by the matter-of-factness of prose. Jean d’Outremeuse exemplifies this effort in his vast Myreur des Histors.

In his brief mention of the Galien tradition, he specifies the date of Charles’s voyage as April 818, and claims that the itinerary included Cyprus

and not Constantinople (perhaps a scribe had at some moment miscopied an abbreviation for the famous city). In confirmation of the close relationship between vows and gabs, Jean wrote: “Et retournat adoncques a Cyppre quant ilz vowont les voires gas par solas dont ilz furent pres mal mys” (Michel, 318).

While the stories of Galien in French literature tend to reflect the legend of Charles’s voyage to the Near East, they took on new twists in Occitan and Italian texts. In the fourteenth-century Occitan Ronsasvals, Galien appears on the battlefield of Roncevaux and identifies himself in the manner of his French predecessor. But the circumstances of his birth are now quite different. Galien knows that Charles and the Twelve Peers had once gone hunting in the land of Lord Gabaut, who lodged them as if they were pilgrims.*’ After supper the French pronounce their gabs, all of which are heard by spies, and they are held accountable for their boasts. Olivier sleeps with Baracle, Gabaut’s daughter, who becomes pregnant. The young Galien is reared by Maradan, whom he believes to be his father, until he is baptized as Galien de Raynier, at which time he learns he is Olivier’s son. Galien relates these vital elements to Charles on the battlefield, which inspires the emperor to dub him a knight in a ceremony more Arthurian

*” Roques, |. 859 . The text is translated into Modern French by Robert Barroux in Les Textes de la Chanson de Roland, ed. Raoul Mortier, 3:118-5o0. For the above passage sce 133.

LATENCIES 179 than epic.** In a scene marked by pathos, the poet joins father and son only

after the former has been blinded in battle. “Let God see you, son, for I cannot” are Olivier’s last words (I. 1036). The young knight witnesses his father’s death, and fights so ferociously in his grief that he falls exhausted and dying (ll. 1004-90). The names of the foreign lord and his daughter give pause, for if one combines the initial syllables of Gabaut and Baracle, the result is Gab-Bar. The second syllable of the father’s name recalls Germanic bald: ‘jubilant, brave, arrogant’ in Old French, ‘courageous and confident’ in Old Occitan. Such word play, if it was the poet’s, might explain the curious occurrence of Gadars in Jean d’Outremeuse, for as the tale of Olivier’s son progresses, invention rather than adhesion to distant sources appears to dominate.*? In the Viaggio di Carlo Magno in Ispagna, which Ruggero Ruggieri re-

named Li Fatti de Spagna, Carlo’s quarrel with his wife is replaced by a jongleur’s detailed description of the king of Portugal’s fabulous wealth, a bit of information which piques Carlo’s curiosity. He hastens with the peers

to this pagan country to see for himself. After they have been there for “molti giorni” (175), Carlo and the pagan king confer in a chamber next to that of the Twelve Peers.*° Rolando instigates a boasting session, which

both Charles and the pagan overhear. Rolando will sound his horn so loudly that birds will fall dead from the sky. Oliviere will have his way with

the king’s daughter. Astolfo claims to be richer than Carlo. Riccardo di Normandia will have more livestock than Carlo in France. After this sampling of four avvanti, the author hurriedly brings the session to an end: “Poi si levonno Ii altri baroni tutti a uno a uno, ciascaduno dicendo lo suo avvanto, chi di belle arme, chi di belli cavalli e chi di belle dame” (176).”! The Portuguese king charges a squire with informing Oliviere that he must perform as promised or lose his head. At this news Rolando bursts out laughing, and the tone of joy surfaces in this version. The story proceeds mechanically, like a fairy tale. The king appears too eager, or too confident, in offering his daughter. After a single night of love, she claims to be preg-

nant. Oliviere gives her a ring for a potential daughter, and for a son his 88 H-E. Keller suggests that Galien’s name may derive from a form of Gauvain: Walwein, with the adoption of the common French suffix -zen (“Aventures,” 240). 8° See in chapter 2 Annalee Rejhon’s hypothesis that Gadar is a Celtic name. °° "Though Ceruti’s edition is imperfect, I quote it here because the modernization of the language facilitates reading. The passages cited vary in no other way from Ruggieri’s edition. °! "The gabs here are called avvanti, but the verbal reflex of gab occurs much earlier in Cerutt’s text. Galles di Normandi, among the wisest in Carlo’s court, exclaims: “che li soi inimici tant si aggabbano di lui” (5-6). Ceruti publishes in his introduction (xiv) six boasts that he judges were drawn from an epic.

180 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE sword Altaclara, which in anticipation he had brought with him to the bedroom (177-78). Once the accomplishment is disclosed, the king banishes the French from his palace and they immediately return to France. In elliptical Old-Testament style, a son, Galeant, is born nine months later, reaches the age of twenty-two, and becomes the best knight in those parts. Galeant overhears a pagan call him a bastard, finds out the truth from his mother, is sent to aid Marsilio, but converts to Christianity on the way, releasing the pagan army under his command. As in Ronsasvals, he meets his dying father on the battlefield (179-86). Imagination is given free rein in the late 15th-century Italian Uggeri il Danese, a work extant in both verse and prose, which Eusebi labels a “fairytale” continuation of the French Ogier le Danois.*? In the last section of his extensive study, Pio Rajna (in 1875) took up the final 3000 stanzas of the verse text and the corresponding prose version®’*. The hero of the title becomes a secondary character, while Rinaldo and Orlando move to center

stage. In the passages that concern us, a giant named Burrato informs Charles in France that one of his embassies is being threatened by an insolent Saracen king. ‘The emperor orders Orlando, Rinaldo, and Ulivieri

to travel to the pagan country, named Arna, Carna, or the court of king Carcasso, depending on the version. On the way, they boast. The chamber in which the vanti are pronounced is only briefly described. Its magnificence is symbolized by a crystal pillar: “E drieto acciena fu assegniato loro una camera molto ricca e bella, nella quale era una colonna, secondo che molti anno scripto, ch’era di cristallo. . .” (Rajna, 412). The pillar is hollow, to conceal the spy (415). The three knights hide their identity: “Noi siamo ambasciadori del grande re Arguto mandati allo Amostante” (415). The knights boast because such is their custom before retiring. Ulivieri decides to brag about something besides feats of arms: “Io mi vo’ dar vanto d’alto che di provare arme. Ammé basterebbe la vista di stare tre giorni con questa donzella sanza mangiare o bere, si mi par bella” (402). Orlando promises to plunge his lance through the enemy king after the latter has clad himself in all the armor he can bear, and Rinaldo vows to roam the earth destroying all the pagans in his path (prose version). The boasts are all accomplished, the final one becoming feasible in the verse text where Rinaldo aspires only to the destruction of a single Saracen city. The vanti (the word gab does not occur) are slightly more elaborate in the poem, each filling an ottavo. King Carcasso requires fulfillment the next day, but the French neither ” On the relationship between Ronsasvals and the Viaggio, see Roques, Romania 66 (1940):439 n. 2, 448; Keller, “Aventures”; and Panvini, 53-54. 3 La Chevalerie d’Ogier de Danemarche, ed. Mario Eusebi, 12 n. 11. 4 Rajna, “Uggeri il Danese.”

LATENCIES 181 pray, nor attend mass, nor invoke relics for assistance in their performances. During Ulivieri’s three-day fast, however, he asks Gismonda, the king’s daughter, to bare her breasts, and milk miraculously flows from them for his sustenance. The enemy king loses his life, unlike Hugon of Constantinople and his other literary descendants. The process of purification that had begun in the Galien story is refined.

Gismonda abandons her pagan faith, falls in love with Ricciardetto, a Christian knight, and marries him. From this legitimate union, the first in the tradition, are born twin sons, who, reared by an eagle and a griffon, are named Aquilante and Grifone. When they reach adulthood, they are protected by two fairies, Bianca and Nera. Gano betrays them. At their death, the narrative, with some variations, comes to an end. The prose narrator claims to have followed a French source: “E questo essuto tradotto de’ libri di Turpino, chessono in San Dionigi” (412).

Despite the familiarity with the legend manifested in his text, Boiardo remembered Ulivieri, not Ricciardetto, as the father of Aquilante and Grifone: Prima fur presi i figli di Olivieri, Luno é Aquilante e l’altro fu Grifone. Orlando Innamorato, Part I, xiii, 46 (Cited by Rajna, 420)

Ariosto repeats the attribution in the Orlando Furioso (xv, 72), but in the following stanza reproaches his predecessor: Ben che l’autor nel padre si confonda, Ch’un per un altro (io non so come) prese. xv, 73 (Rayna 421)

Obviously Ariosto knew a version of Uggeri il Danese.

3.2 Adaptations and ‘Translations of the Voyage The Southern tradition was preoccupied with the consequences of Olivier’s gab, and especially with how the birth of a son affected the nobility, while the Northern tradition retained the flavor of the gabs in general, of the act of boasting, as first preserved in the Voyage de Charlemagne. The Scandinavian and Welsh texts are translations and adaptations of the Voyage rather than continuations: 1) forsalaferd, Branch VII of the Karlamagnuis saga, the earliest version of which may date from the thirteenth century. The manuscript on which

182 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE extant copies were based dates from 1300, and was commissioned by Hakon V of Norway (1299-1319). (See VN, 23, 30.) 2) The Swedish Karl Magnus, a brief text from the end of the fourteenth century (VN, 35). 3) The Danish Karl Magnus Kronike, from the fourteenth or fifteenth century (VN, 35). 4) A Welsh Ystoria Charles, from the Red Book of Hergest [ed.: now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford], probably fourteenth century (K, 1-39). 5) A Welsh Campeu Charlymaen, in the Hengwrt MSS, close to number 4 and from the same period. 6) Icelandic Gezplur, the originals dating possibly from the fourteenth century.” 7) ‘The Faroese Geipa tattur, from the late sixteenth century.” 8) The Ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall, a sixteenth-century English adaptation.

Aebischer’s scrutiny of the Scandinavian versions need not be repeated here. He concluded that the forsalaferd, from which the others derive, is “un reflet fidéle du texte frangais” (VN, 73). The same may be said of the Welsh translations, although these have already lost some of the comic flavor of the Voyage and may have been influenced by the legend of Olivier’s son. The Hengwrt version displays such slavish dependence on its exemplar that I can agree with those who believe that lost French poems were models

for the surviving texts. While the Red Book version relies even more on the French poem, the Hengwrt offers an embellished portrait of Hugh, a more elaborate response from Charles’s wife in the opening quarrel between the two, and the miraculous welcoming by the chairs in the church at Jerusalem. ‘The Hengwrt adaptor compares Hu (Hugon) to Adam, which

seems to jar with the observation in the French poem that Hugon was “pleins de malevis.” The rotating palace is now almost as ominous as the whirling spirits in Dante’s Inferno. The gabs are transformed into “sports to be performed the next day before Hu” (Campeu, 444), while the spy, always called a “listener,” hides outside the door in a great stone. The characterization of the “eschut” has remained unchanged, and the notion of the “gab” has been defined. While the boasts in the French text give the appearance of emptiness, mere words without consequences until the braggarts are held accountable, the Welsh remanieur makes it clear from the °° See Davis, 251ff.; VN, 53ff.; and Campeu Charlymaen, ed. and trans. Robert Williams and G. Hartwell Jones. °6 See Davis, 253. Both the Geiplur and the Geipa derive from the Férsalaferd, according to Aebischer VN, 53ff.

LATENCIES 183 outset that these words are promises to perform, precisely like the beitstrengingar of the Jémsvikings. ‘The boasting is referred to as a “custom,”

but the locales of Paris and Chartres are omitted. The angel does not reprimand the boasters, but rather promises to help, as needed, anyone chosen by Hu to execute a promise. Hu himself, however, complains that he was wrong to offer hospitality to “jugglers” (Campeu, 447). The Welsh writer invokes God’s aid only for Bernard’s performance. He interprets the controversial “pin antif” of the British Museum manuscript (Voyage, ll. 780, 783) as a “high hill,” a detail easily explained paleographically as deriving

from the reading pw for pin. Hints that the Welshman may have used a version other than the surviving French text emerge with his specification

of Mary’s slipper as one of the relics, and with his precise location of the Spanish expedition at Roncevaux (Campeu, 441; cf. Voyage, |. 230). The

fidelity of these translations into Norse and Welsh demonstrates that the notion of gab as genre could be applied to these reworkings. The Icelandic ballads treat the substance of the tradition more freely, but they display more dependence on its form. The Faroese Geipa tattur is “a boasting ballad.”*’ In it the poet repeats Charles’s quarrel with his wife. The French depart under arms, but the emperor brings along only

the twelve peers. It is on the advice of Turpin, rather than because of Charles’s dream, that they travel to Jerusalem first, where Kortunatus warns

them of the dangers of Constantinople. The patriarch, who conceives of Charles as descending from heaven, places him in Christ’s chair, and it is Oluvar who remembers the Queen’s words. Relics are received, but without Charles’s requesting them. They serve as weapons against twelve wolves

and twelve bears defending Constantinople. The emperor of Constantinople quickly takes the French to their bedrooms once they have overcome the city’s miraculous defenses. The boasting follows closely the schema in the French poem; a clerk overhears them and writes down his comments.

The threatened punishment is burning rather than decapitation. A voice from heaven promises help and warns the French not to boast again. ‘The empress of Constantinople attempts to defend the French, but the emperor insists on the execution of four (not three) boasts: Rolant’s, Olgar the Dane’s (who throws a heavy ball, but without damage to the palace), Oluvar’s (who kisses the daughter roo times), and Turpin’s (who causes the flood). Charles takes treasure from Constantinople and returns to his farm. The texts just surveyed reflect attempts to keep a specific work alive, albeit with variations in form, rather than to regenerate a genre. The focus continues to be on Charles and the Peers, and the tradition employs imi-

°7 So translated by Margolin, whom Davis cites (236). See also Koschwitz, 175-83.

184 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE tation rather than adherence to a formal mold into which new substance might be poured. The single exception, as noted earlier, is the ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall, which depends on some version of the Voyage, but because it is not simply an adaptation like the Geipa tattur, it will be examined later.

The latencies and remaniements we have traced in this chapter fail to coalesce into a unity that meets the requirements previously posited for the gab as a latent genre. The latencies, like the Occitan gap, reflect fragments of a theme. The reworkings show dependence, the mere imitation of a text. The continuations follow the evolution of the epic through its various phases up to the end of the Middle Ages. Geographically, the more marked manifestations of the gab as genre continue to appear in the North, while the southern texts have different goals that reflect the ideologies of their makers.

If Favati is correct, the Voyage poem now surviving in a fourteenthcentury Anglo-Norman manuscript was based on a tradition that included a text in thirteenth-century Picard dialect. Sone de Nansai also exhibits an unmistakable Picard hand.** Aebischer contended that the model of the First Branch of the Karlamagniis saga was a Walloon text (VN, 83), while Morf (218 n. 3) noted that the Abbey of Aix-la-Chapelle belonged in the diocese of Liége at least until the end of the tenth century. Thus it comes as no surprise that crystallizations of the genre are connected to Liége and Luxembourg.

°8 Fritz Hummel in his dissertation on scribal and authorial languages placed both in the “belgoromanischen Sprachgebiet.” See Zu Sprache und Verstechnik des Sone de Nausay, 23. He uncovered a single dialect trait that might place the author in Eastern Normandy, but the remaining features are overwhelmingly Picard and Walloon. Hummel suggested that Nivelles, mentioned four times in the poem, might have been the author’s home (67). The manuscript was copied in the early fourteenth century, thus marking continued interest in such adventure romances in the North, and linking the gab’s latency to time and place.

6 Crystallizations

I. Les Voeux du paon ‘THE RELATIVELY OBSCURE Voeux du paon merits far more attention than it has

received, for it possesses surprising aesthetic appeal in its pathos, joy, and integrity. In 1927 Antoine Thomas complained that literary historians directed all their energies toward the early Alexander romances, to the neglect of the later developments, and notably of the Voeux du paon: “Un poéme composé au début du XIV€ siécle, comme Les Voeux du paon ne semblait pouvoir étre qu'une oeuvre de décadence, fatalement médiocre et sans intérét. Injuste préyugé.”! Although it continues the Alexander material, specifically the Prise de Defur and the Fuerre de Gadres, it is an independent poem, from which the vow section may be isolated and held up as a crystallization of the gab as a genre. Although little is known of the author, Jacques de Longuyon, more has been uncovered about his life than is usual for a medieval writer. In 1895 Bonnardot identified Jacques’s patron as the Bishop of Liége, ‘Thiébaut de Bar, and thus supplied both a terminus ad quem of composition and a hint on the geographic origins of the poem.’ That the piece had been completed a few years before Thiébaut’s death, that is, about 1310, has been inferred. Ritchie surmised, without adducing any evidence but his own opinion, that “vowing to a bird of mystic or heraldic significance to perform some high

! Thomas, “Jacques de Longuyon, Trouvére,” 18. ? Francois Bonnardot, “A qui Jacques de Longuyon a-t-il dédié le poéme des Voeux du Paon?”

185

186 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE deed became a knightly custom in the early fourteenth century.”? He admits its “roots in human nature” and associates it with not only the Norse heitstrenging but also the Voyage de Charlemagne. \ suggest that this “knightly

custom” reflects the latency of the gab as a genre, and that the vow poems display enough symptoms in common with the gab to be viewed as mani-

festations of its recurrence in literature. Its reappearance in the North rather than in, say, Provence, where it never took root, affirms that the tradition persisted. All but one of the 34 manuscripts of the text entitle it Les Voewx du paon. (By analogy, the Voyage de Charlemagne could be called Les Gabs de Constantinople, a heading that would identify accurately that poem’s contents,

principal theme, and genre.) The single French manuscript that fails to adopt the majority title, Douce 308, labels the text /7 Romans de Cassamus,

and the Dutch translation follows suit.t The relatively high number of surviving manuscripts and fragments (Casey lists five of the latter), and especially the Dutch and Scottish translations, would seem to attest to a certain popularity. What attracts our attention is the work’s survival into Germanic tongues and the paucity of texts in any other Romance language. Ritchie, Carraroli, and Deyermond believe that a Spanish translation existed.° Carraroli declared the poem totally dependent on its French model, while Deyermond, more prudent, makes no pronouncement on the relationships to its source. The Marqués de Santillana knew Los Votos del Paven,

since he referred to the work in a letter to the Constable of Portugal in the fifteenth century (Morel-Fatio, xvi). The Marqués may have owned a copy, but on the other hand he may have merely seen a French text and simply translated the title. With such skimpy evidence, one is justified in wondering if the Spanish text is spurious. In any case the Iberian interest appears to focus on the legend of Alexander itself rather than on the maintenance of the boasting custom in literature. Two editions have been prepared. The first is R. L. Graeme Ritchie’s Buik of Alexander, which is spread out over four volumes in pages facing the Scottish translation, the main target of the editor’s attention. This edition lacks notes and glossary for the original French, but it offers a readable text and is based on the sole manuscript (BnF, fr. 12565: cf. Casey, viii) that appends the crucial explicit identifying the author and his patron: > L. Graeme Ritchie, ed., Les Voeux du Paon, in The Buik of Alexander by John Barbour, I -XXxX1X.

+ Camillus Casey, ed., “Les Voeux du Paon. An Edition of the Manuscripts of the P Redaction,” vii-ix. > Ritchie r:xlii n. 2; Dario Carraroli, La Leggenda di Alessandro magno: Studio storicocritico, 226; A. D. Deyermond, Historia de la literatura espanola: La Edad media, 127; Alfred Morel-Fatio, ed., El Libro de Alixandre, xvi.

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 187 Jaques de Langhion define ci ses dis Qui fu de Loherainne,.i. moult joieus pays, Qui au conmant Tybaut, qui de Bar fu nays, Rimoia ceste ystoire, qui bele est a devis; Tybaus fut mors a Ronme avoec .i. Lembourgis

Qui empereres ert, si ot a nom Henris, ,

De Luxembourc fu quens et chevaliers eslis. Jacobin preécheur (qui soient tous honnis!) Le firent par poison morir, dont il est pis A tous bons crestiens, et a tout par pays. Diex en puisse avoir l’ame, par les soies mercis Et de ‘Tybaut aussi, qui gais ert et jolis, Et gentis de lignage, corageus et hardis, Et tint moult bien son droit, contre tout ses marcis, ‘Tant quil fu au dessus de tous ses [enemis] Cil me nomma I’ystoire, qui bele est a devis. (Ritchie, IV, 4416, ll. 8769-84)°

Camillus Casey completed a second edition for his Columbia University doctoral dissertation in 1956. He included a language study, textual notes, an up-to-date list of manuscripts, and a critical text based upon the earliest redaction. His work is marred by a primitive presentation of the text, which is photographed from a typescript to which the diacritics have been added

by hand. The lack of interpretive comments and a concordance to the Ritchie edition poses further obstacles to the reader. Nonetheless Casey’s work serves as a valuable control against Ritchie’s text, which was slanted to show the relationship to the Scottish translation. Fortunately, Casey’s text too can be checked against the fine facsimile printing of the base manuscript, since Montague Rhodes James’s reproduction is available for consultation in many research libraries.’ Both editors agree that the poem falls into two unequal parts. Part I, Il. 1-3811 (Casey, Il. 1-3879) could properly be labelled a “prelude,” in which the ties to the previous Alexander romances are established, but more crucially a framework is provided to introduce the vow section, Part II, Il. 3812-8784 (Casey, ll. 3880-8584). The central conflict is set forth in the earliest scenes, involves several clashes, and unifies the narrative by centering on Cassamus, thus legitimating the decision by one remanieur to ‘Unless otherwise noted, all quotations of Les Voeux du Paon are drawn from this edition. ’ See Lambert le Tort, The Romance of Alexander, A Collotype Facsimile of MS Bodley 264 (Oxford, 1933).

188 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE entitle the poem Le Roman de Cassamus. First Cassamus must forgive Alexander and his knights for having slain his brother. Second, and more critical for the plot, Clarus attempts to kidnap Fesonas in order to seize her inheritance. To this end he has besieged the castle of Epheson. Perhaps the elements arise from inevitable coincidence, but once again are found a watrior atmosphere, a foreign land, a castle that must be reached by cross-

ing an important body of water (the vast river Faron), and a threat of imminent catastrophe. All of these recall the Jomsvikinga saga, Beowulf, Le Voyage de Charlemagne, and Sone de Nansai. Although the characters and the plot are ostensibly linked to the Alexander romances, the generic structure

recalls the gab. Indeed, historians agree that the Voeux du paon forms a discreet, independent narrative, and the editors show without a doubt that within the poem the vow section is the heart, for it too could be detached and stand separately.® A brief glance at the opening lines of Part Two discloses the imitation of the beginning of many a medieval text: Ce fu el moys de may, qu’yvers va a declin, Que cil oyseillon gay chantent en lor latin, Bois et prés raverdissent contre le douz temps prin, Et nature envoisie par son soutil engin Les revest et polist de maint divers flourin, Blanc et vert et vermel, ynde, jaune, et sanguin. A ycel temps avint, par .1. lundi matin, Que Clarvus li Yndois et tuit si palasin

Assiegierent a ost Gadifer le meschin .... (Il. 3812-20)

There follows a concise summary of the entire plot up to that point, almost 4000 alexandrine lines of story compressed into a short passage. The narrator relates in essence that during Clarus’s siege of Epheson, Cassamus led an assault against the Indians during which Cassiel le Baudrain was captured. Later (on a Thursday) Porrus was taken prisoner while the enemy was foraging outside the castle walls. At the same time, Betis was captured by the raiders. The upshot of these events will be that two enemy knights, the prisoners Cassiel le Baudrain and Porrus, will participate in the vowing game. ‘The poet justifiably deems this knowledge indispensable to the com-

prehension of the second part. But other matters in the “Prelude” contribute to the atmosphere and affect the personal relationships between the characters. The ladies of Epheson have been able to observe some of the 8 For emphasis on continuity, see Renata Blumenfeld-Kosinski, “The Poetics of Continuation in the Old French Paon Cycle.”

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 189 combats from the castle walls, a circumstance that leads to Edea’s admiration of the Baudrain (1. 1340). In fact, the sexes are shown in their inevitable interplay from the very earliest scenes. As the warriors gather for first battle, Betis admits that Ydorus excites his fancy (ll. 527-59). By the end of the “Prelude” it becomes apparent that the protagonist Fesonas lacks a future mate, and that the courageous captive Porrus is likely to fill this role. Indeed, the impetuous Porrus sets in motion the machinery for the ritual of the peacock vows when, abetted by Cassamus, he slays the bird, which belongs, it happens, to Fesonas. She succumbs to the loss (3898) like Psyché to Cupid’s arrow and flirts with the bird’s killer, who begs forgiveness and promises to become her subject (3899-3904). But joy prevails, for the company decides there is nothing else to do but roast the bird for dinner. Thus begins the vowing, the custom of the country, an occasion for merriment: Et Cassamus escrie: “est li paGns rostis?” “Oil,” dist .j. vallés, “bien brochiés et farsis!” “Seignor,” dist li viellars, “par mes diex, il m’est vis C’on doit faire au pa6n Pusage du pays: Chascuns y doit voér son bon et son avis.” (ll. 3908-12)

Need I recall Charlemagne’s allusion to “tel custume en France, a Paris et a Cartres” (Voyage, |. 654), when the French relax “Et si dient ambure et saver et folage” (J. 656)? Coincidentally, the emperor Hugo regales his guest with peacock at his banquets in Constantinople, once before the gabs (1. 411), and once after (1. 835). The distinction between “vow” and gab is blurred, as I noted in the discussion of latencies.? Cassamus contrasts youth with age, prowess with outrage, rather than “wisdom with folly,” and emphasizes that the goal in his proposal is to infuse the day with pleasure: “Seigneurs,” dist Cassamus, “puis que chascuns I’otrie, Je lo que nous tenons la jornée envoisie. (Il. 3921-22)

But Cassamus has not forgotten that Porrus is a knight in Clarus’s army and that bloody conflict is near (Il. 3924-30). Furthermore, as the vowing progresses, heated exchanges between the participants remind all of the adversity that confronts them. Like gabs, vows, heitstrenging, and flytings ° See discussion of Jean d’Outremeuse’s comparison of vow and gab in chapter 5 and chapter 2.

190 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE in the predecessors of this poem, the speech acts appear to be a relief from tension before battle, or before a life-threatening situation as in the Voyage. For the wine and food that spurred on the gabs is substituted a cooked bird, perhaps of heraldic significance as Ritchie suggests, but the meal is not lacking, and the bird is constantly emphasized, especially in its function as

the hero’s portion (1. 3944). When the vows have been vowed and the peacock eaten, the sumptuous meal ends: Les nappes sont ostées; au laver des barons Vielent menestrel rotruénges et sons. (Il. 4361-62)

Later, a young squire relates to Alexander the marvelous event: Onques mais tiex mervelles n’oy nus hon conter. Mengié ont li baron ensemble, per a per, El palais Iupiter que Venus fist fonder, En joie et en soulas, pour leur cors deporter. Si ont eti, bons roys, .1. pa6n au disner. (Il. 4405-9)

The elderly warrior Cassamus, eponymous protagonist of the tale, has voyaged to a distant land and made himself master of a marvelous palace in a city besieged by an exotic and powerful ruler, Clarus, king of the Inds. Reminiscences of Charlemagne in Constantinople are apparent, so that it comes as no surprise to learn that Cassamus pronounces the first vow. Each of the twelve boasts, like the thirteen gabs, has three parts: (1) an invitation, usually by Elyot, the maiden of “moult haute lignie” (J. 3937) who circulates among the participants bearing the peacock; (2) the vow proper, introduced by the key words “veu et si promet”; (3) a comment on the boast’s appropriateness or foolhardiness. 1. Cassamus’s vow. Typically, Elyot must use a little urging to persuade the dinner guest to boast: “Sire,” dist Elyot au viellart Cassamus, “Vous estes li plus viex, si seés au dessus! Je vous conmant le veu: estes vous pourveiis?” (Il. 3948-50)

The potential vower normally responds with “Bele” or “Elyot,” but direct address may occasionally be absent. Cassamus requires no further cajoling; he replies immediately:

CRYSTALLIZATIONS IQI “Bele,” dist li viellars, “n’i doi metre refus, Ains veu et si promet a nostre dieu Marcus: Se par nous est li champ desconfis ne vaincus Et je truis au dessous le riche roy Clarvus Que il soit entrepris ne entrepiés chetis, Qu’il sera de par moy aidiés et secourus ‘Tant qu'il ert remontés, puis me trairai ensus; Et tout ce sera fait pour l’amour de Porrus, Qui est par sa proésce et pris et retenus.” (ll. 3951-59)

The spirit of Cassamus’s vow reflects the extreme courtesy that characterizes the Voeux du paon. Although the old warrior is Porrus’s worst enemy, he treats his adversary almost as if he were a beloved son. Cassamus had already urged Porrus to slay the peacock when the young man had hesitated. Cassamus has proposed the game of vowing in part to assuage the captive’s melancholy, and now he promises, in deference to the young chieftain, to set the wicked Clarus back on his horse should he discover him dismounted on the battlefield. The consequences of this action, were it to be carried out, would be to endanger not only himself, but also Fesonas and Gadifer, his niece and nephew, whom he has sworn to defend with Alexander’s help. His vow is unreal, illogical, and self-defeating, yet in harmony with the spirit of idyllic, courteous chivalry that pervades the text. Porrus reacts to this vow: “Biau sire, grans mercis et de tant et de plus S’il avient que ce soit! Mais ja nel voie nus! Encor vous en sera li guerredons rendus, Car bons fais ne bons dis ne puet estre perdus!” (Il. 3961-64)

He hints that in the inevitable combat between them, a return favor would be in order. In sum, the vow consists of Elyot’s invitation: 3948-50 (3 lines); the feat to be accomplished: 3951-59 (9 lines); Porrus’s comment: 3961— 64 (4 lines). 2. Aristé’s vow. As if in response to Cassamus’s hypercourteous boast, Aristé promises to defend the wronged Fesonas until the Indians have been driven off. Elyot’s invitation: 3967-70 (4 lines); the vow: 3971-78 (8 lines); Elyot’s comment: 3979-80 (2 lines). 3. Perdicas’s vow. He will dismount in the midst of the battle and fight with the “sergeans,” 1.e., foot soldiers. His vow is preceded by a portrait (3982-85). Elyot’s invitation: 3987-89 (3 lines); the vow: 3990-98 (9 lines); Cassamus’s comment:

1g2 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE “Par foi,” dist Cassamus, “cist ne nous faurra mie. N’el veu n’el chevalier n’a point de couardie!” (Il. 3999-4000)

4. Fesonas’s vow, the first by a woman, consists of a refusal to accept either “ami” or husband unless Alexander, who intends to chase away the

enemy, proposes the suitor to her. Elyot’s invitation: 4003-4 (2 lines); the vow: 4005-12 (8 lines); Cassamus’s comment: 4013 (1 line). While the

men’s vows generally concern the impending battle, two of the three women direct their attention to courtship and marriage. 5. Porrus’s vow. Since he is an adversary, a captive amidst his enemies, any boast he might make with regard to the coming conflict will likely lead to strife. In response to Elyot’s invitation, Porrus hesitates: “Bele,” ce dist Porrus, “je ne m’en doi meller De veu ne de promesse, car je n’ai que donner ‘Tant que soie prison; mais, a mon delivrer, Me vaudrai, se je puis, envers vous acorder.” (Il. 4020-23)

Floridas’s persuasive flattery is required to bring Porrus around, but the narrator informs us that the true motivation to speak is inspired by a sudden attraction to Fesonas: J. desirriers d’amours li vait el cuer entrer Qui pour Fezonias l’avoit fait eschauffer, Si en vodra son veu enforcier et doubler. (Il. 4039-41)

When Elyot repeats her exhortation, Porrus vows to win the battle, provided that God saves him from death and preserves his limbs, and to joust first with Emenidus, whose horse he will steal. This verbal attack on one of the heroes of the majority results in an uproar from the crowd. Lyone is the first to comment. He says that if Porrus should accomplish that feat, he would pay him 50 times the steed’s weight in the purest gold. The rest of the company complains that this is indeed an outrageous vow, and, incredulous, wonders if any knight could be strong enough, lucky enough, to capture Emenidus’s charger. Meanwhile Fesonas is struck with admiration: Elle a dit en son cuer: “Ne sai que cil fera. Il n’est pas sans grant cuer qui tel chose enpris a;

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 193 Ewireuse ert la dame qui tel mari avra.” (Casey, Il. 4142-44)!°

Essentially Porrus’s vow consists of Elyot’s second invitation: (4045); the vow: 4046-51 (6 lines); Lyone’s comment: 4052-55 (4 lines).

6. Edea’s vow. The second lady to boast wishes that the peacock be restored as a golden statue, a statement that will inspire the composition of the sequel, Le Restor du paon by Jean Brisebarre, which may be considered

an epigonous offshoot of the gab-like genre under scrutiny here. Edea’s vow stands alone among the ladies, for only hers does not concern marriage and courtship. Elyot’s invitation: 4073-74 (2 lines); the vow: 4075-80 (6 lines); Porrus’s comment: 4082. 7. The Baudrain’s vow. Cassiel, Sultan of Baudre, unlike his fellow prisoner, willingly enters into the verbal fray and vows to seize Alexander’s sword in the midst of the emperor’s own men. The reaction is quicker and more violent than that which greeted Porrus’s boast earlier: Adont s’esmut entr’eulz .j. grant murmurement, Et dient a conseil: “cils est plains de fourssent!” (Il. 4094-95)

The commentary thus becomes complex, first leading to Caulus’s countervow and later influencing that of Floridas. Elyot’s invitation: 4086; the vow: 4088-93 (6 lines); comment as follows. 8. Caulus’s vow. Angrily, and without invitation, Caulus promises to tear

off the Baudrain’s helmet, and adds that if the Baudrain manages to seize Alexander’s sword and bring it to him, he will pay him a hundred marks of silver. The Baudrain himself courteously condemns his opponent's anger and recalls the primary goal of their competition, the accomplishment of one’s vow. Cassamus intervenes to calm tempers. No invitation; the vow: 4097-4106 (10 lines); comment by the Baudrain: 4108-15, and by Cassamus: 4116-20 (13 lines). g. Ydorus’s vow. Ydorus promises fidelity to her lover, whom she avoids naming. Seated next to the Baudrain, who has just made his boast, Ydorus apparently needs no invitation to continue the game. The vow: 4124-31 (8 lines); Cassamus’s commentary: 4133-34 (2 lines).

to. Lyone’s vow. Elyot recalls Lyone’s peril during the foraging of Gadre; the knight responds with praise of Aristé for his bravery in having saved the day despite several wounds. Aristé blushes. Lyone vows to demand a joust with Clarus’s eldest son immediately after their dinner. Elyot’s 10 This extract is drawn from Casey; Ritchie, Il. 4064-66, lacks |. 4142 above, thus muddling the narrative and the punctuation.

194 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE invitation: 4151-52 (2 lines); the vow: 4155-59 (5 lines); Cassamus’s comment: 4160.

11. Floridas’s vow. Next in line, Floridas has been seething over the Baudrain’s boast. Elyot laughingly chides him and requests his vow. He upbraids the Baudrain for his disrespect of Alexander, to which the prisoner courteously replies that chance has brought him to this contest. Each must speak his will for pleasure and amusement according to the wishes of Cassamus, “cilz preudons [qui] nous a ci endroit assamblé” (4187). If he has spoken foolishly, it will be proved on the battlefield. Floridas recognizes

that he has infringed the law of courtesy and grants that nothing should be spoken in anger. Nonetheless, he vows that if the Baudrain should steal Alexander’s sword, he will be unable to carry it away before Floridas captures or wounds him. The Baudrain praises this chivalric boast, but promises to carry out his own. Despite the courteous words, the crowd has grown angry and must be calmed by Cassamus. ‘True valor will be demonstrated in the heat of the battle. Fesonas compliments the old man for his “proesce de viellart” (4253), to which the aged warrior replies that her praise is worth more to him than the royal treasury. Thus Floridas’s vow offers the most evident clues to the emotional commitments made in the boasting session. The variation shows a new phase in the genre, a step beyond the stylized versions in, say, Beowulf or the Voyage de Charlemagne, in which the psychological state of the participants was often, if not entirely,

left to the audience’s imagination. Elyot’s invitation: 4170~—71 (2 lines); Floridas reprimands the Baudrain: 4172-83 (12 lines); the Baudrain defends his position: 4185-95 (11 lines); Floridas’s vow: 4196-42 14 (19 lines); the Baudrain’s comment: 4215-20 (6 lines); Cassamus’s discourse on chivalry (next laisse): 4226-51 (26 lines); Fesonas’s praise: 4253-54 (2 lines); Cassamus’s response: 4254-55 (2 lines). 12. Gadifer’s vow. Cassamus, the instigator of the game, extends the final invitation. The hierarchy differs from that of the Voyage in that the last person to make a vow is far from the least. Indeed he is a major character in the plot, and as nephew of the protagonist occupies the traditionally important relationship accorded such blood relatives in medieval narrative literature. Gadifer’s initial response to his uncle’s summons is to review the boasts made by the two prisoners and Caulus’s counter-vow, all of which, he believes, will be accomplished. Gadifer doubts that his vow can match theirs:

Je ne sai que vouer; tous en sui esmaiés! 42654 Nonetheless he soon finds courage and changes his tune:

Non pourquant, de voér sui tous apparelliés. 4278

CRYSTALLIZATION S 195 He promises to topple Clarus’s battle standard, a boast so serious that it engenders a multiple response. It would be a great misdeed, complains Porrus. Elyot chimes in that the act would be grievous Gadifer’s reply discloses the attitude, apparently general among the characters, toward the nature of the vows: “Bele,” dist Gadifers, “par les dieus ou l’en croit, J'ai voé conme fox, mais il le couvenoit. Cuidier contre cuidier, mestier est qu’ainsi soit!” (II. 4289-91)

The participants are, it would seem, obliged to “vow like fools,” and competitively, ambition against ambition. Gadifer, as the Baudrain before him, concludes that the boast’s value lies in its achievement. Elyot agrees: “Sire,” dist Elyos, “et se cuidiers n’estoit, Jamais nus jones hons a hounor ne venroit!” (Il. 4294-95)

Gadifer accepts her statement, thus ending the session. The last boast, then, adds a flourish by its formal complexity. Cassamus’s invitation: 42 5960 (2 lines); Gadifer’s hesitant vow: 4262-84 (23 lines); Porrus’s comment:

4285-86 (2 lines), reinforced by Elyot: 4287-88 (2 lines); Gadifer’s justification: 4289-93 (5 lines); a final exchange between Elyot and Gadifer: 4294-7 (2 lines each). In the next laisse Elyot continues to praise Gadifer, so that her commentary serves as a smooth transition to the custom’s next phase: a peacock parade around the table culminating in selection of the worthiest vow. Elyot convinces Gadifer that he should make the choice: Biau sire, si devés vostre court asbaudir Et le paon par droit au commun departir Et devant le plus preu a geneillons offrir. (Casey, Il. 4401-3)!

'1 Compare Ritchie (4305 for Casey 4401): “S’en devés, biaus dous sire, vostre joie esboudir.” Casey’s reading, by underscoring Gadifer’s rank in the Castle of Epheson, provides justification for his rdle as a judge in the contest: it would be inappropriate for the castellan to win the prize in his own court.

196 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Gadifer complains of the difficulty of choosing among so many courageous

knights; the vows of the women are apparently not in contention, for he requests that Ydorus and Edea accompany him and Elyot in the peacock parade, and Fesonas is simply omitted from the description of the procession, which stops in front of each baron (4333). Gadifer finally selects Aristé, who had vowed to defend Fesonas at all costs. Aristé protests modestly that others present are worthier, but Gadifer insists: “De par moi le vous doins, et Diex le vous otroie!” Puis met jus le padn et si le depechoie, Devant eulz maintenant le depart et envoie. (Il. 4353-55)

Cassamus ratifies his nephew’s choice; the vows have been vowed; and the peacock is eaten. That the vows display generally the same tripartite structure as the gabs in Constantinople and are often roughly the same length is obvious. Com-

pare the following mathematical reduction to the corresponding chart in chapter 3: Because the mimesis is less stylized than in the Voyage, the vow structure appears less rigid. Caulus’s vow is in fact a commentary on the Baudrain’s,

while Gadifer’s is preceded by hesitation. The commentary on Caulus’s vow is made by two respondents. Gadifer’s vow includes a review of previous vows. But these variations tend to prove the growth of a latent genre rather than deny its existence, for genres live dynamically. The hierarchy, too, has been altered. We noted earlier that the unclenephew relationship occurs in a symmetrical configuration in the Voeux; i.e., uncle Cassamus speaks first, as does Charlemagne, but nephew Gadifer

is last, apparently because of his rank, rather than second like nephew Roland. Aristé, the winner, comes second. One can only conjecture that the worthiness of his vow, the fact that it encompasses broadly the entire goal of Cassamus and his family, merits this spot in the hierarchy. More obvious is the placement of future married couples: Fesonas, fourth, will marry Porrus, fifth in order, while the future wife and man Edea and the Baudrain are sixth and seventh. The order presumably reflects the seating

around the table, where the two sexes alternate. That Ydorus does not immediately follow the Baudrain is probably because Caulus has made his counter-vow impetuously, perhaps shouting it from across the table. Three types of vows can be distinguished: (1) the “normal” or expected, which expresses the general intent of the besieged within Epheson castle to harm the enemy in some way; (2) the feminine wishes, two of which are concerned with love or marriage, with the third a benign but curious desire

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 197 Person Intro./Vow/Comment Content

vowing (total lines) of vow

1. Cassamus 3/9/4 (16) to aid Clarus 2. Aristé 3/8/2 (13) to defend Fesonas 3. Perdicas 3/9/2,. (14) to fight on foot 4. Fesonas 2/8/1 (11) to accept Alexander as matchmaker 5. Porrus 1/6/4 (11) to steal Emenidus’s horse and win battle

6. Edea 2/6/19) to restore the peacock

7. The Baudrain 1/6/0 (7) to seize Alexander’s sword

8. Caulus 0*/10/13 (23) to tear off the Baudrain’s helmet and recover sword

9. Ydorus 0/8/2 (10) to be a faithful lover 10. Lyone 2/5/1 (8) to joust with Clarus’s eldest son

11. Floridas 2/19/6 (27) to avenge the Baudrain’s seizure of Alexander’s sword

12. Gadifer 2/23/2 (27) to topple Clarus’s battle standard.

to memorialize the event; (3) adversary vows, which disrupt the session’s harmony, and consequently the tripartite structure of the boast (invitation, vow, comment). Yet the range of reaction, hostile or friendly, remains consonant with the eschut’s in the Voyage, who judged each gab by its potential harm to the host, Hugo. A new slant seems to have been introduced with the peacock procession and the formal awarding of a prize for the “best” vow, yet one might argue that in pragmatic terms the gab of Bernard also won a prize, since its accomplishment saved the French from decapitation and was instrumental in earning for Charlemagne the fiefdom of Constantinople, a much richer award than a roasted peacock. In both works, the consequences of boasting and the effort to put one’s words into action remain essential to the gab as genre; the participants are held accountable for their words. The realization of the vows to the peacock occupies the narrative up to the poem’s end, although some performances are dramatized more specifically than others, and one or two vows seem to have been lost in the shuffle. The knights accomplish their boasts during the battle for Epheson Castle against Clarus and the Indian army. The barons’ spectacular efforts to

198 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE make good their promises highlight the combat scenes, which would otherwise fall into trite, monotonous repetitions. ‘he feminine vows, especially Fesonas’s, appear to be fulfilled as a direct result of the battle’s outcome, i.e., Alexander’s victory. Casey contends that all vows are realized except Edea’s, which seems to have been omitted. However, the entangled manuscript tradition may conceal the effort to carry out even her promise,

for the “ending” of several MSS is in fact the beginning of the Restor du paon.

Are then the vows, save Edea’s, all accomplished, as Casey maintains? Let us scrutinize the text. While in the Voyage the gabeors are forced by Hugo to execute their boasts, the Peacock Vowers recognize a moral obligation to turn their speech into action. ‘Thus their vows reflect the heztstrengingar so notably recorded in the Jomsviking saga, in which the warriors

suddenly realize that they must act to preserve their honor. Lyone, for example, whose vow depends on time, rushes out immediately after the peacock feast to challenge Clarus’s eldest son to a jousting match. Here is the order in which the vows are accomplished, beginning with Lyone’s:

1) Lyone jumps to his feet as soon as the tablecloths are removed (signalling the meal’s end), requests arms, leaves by himself, rushes to Clarus’s tents, finds the latter’s son Canaan, and jousts (4363-4674). The combat itself, i.e., the vow’s accomplishment, occupies only ten lines (4587-97). The combatants unhorse each other and fall to the ground unconscious. The exaggerated honor paid to Lyone, the fact that he is escorted back to Epheson by Marcien, Clarus’s nephew, borders on bathos for the modern reader, and could possibly have provoked laughter among the medieval public. Humor intrudes as the messenger to whom Lyone had promised his coat is kicked by Lyone when he demands his unearned payment.

2A) The first part of Porrus’s boast is accomplished when he steals Emenidus’s horse, Ferrant (6178-6200). 3) Perdicas fights on foot (6293ff.). 4) Cassamus helps his enemy to remount after a fall (6448-6511). 5) The Baudrain seizes Alexander’s sword (6576-90). 6) Caulus grabs the Baudrain and tears off his helmet (6597-6616). 7) Floridas vanquishes the Baudrain and takes him prisoner to Alexander (6660-89). 8) Gadifer destroys the defenders of Clarus’s battle standard and hacks it down (6743-6834). 2B) Porrus had boasted that he would win the battle. He wounds Emenidus and Floridas, beheads Alexander’s horse, and downs Cassamus, Tholomer, and Betis. Finally Emenidus breaks Porrus’s calf bone, preventing any further combat (7333-7782). But his vow is accomplished, since he had

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 19g stipulated that he would win only if God preserved life and limb (cf. Il. 4048~49). (9) Aristé’s vow is neglected. He had merely promised to defend Fesonas, however, so his presence on the battlefield (6517) would seem to justify the claim that he kept his word. When the battle is declared over, only the three female vows remain in

abeyance, which fact requires attention to some textual problems. The version edited by Casey is shorter than the one edited by Ritchie, and Casey believes with some justification that it is also earlier; itis Ritchie’s text that may contain the beginning of the Restor du paon. Both versions, fortunately,

mention Alexander’s marriage arrangements. He proposes that Porrus marry Fesonas; the Baudrain, Edea; and Betis, Ydorus (Casey, 7904ff.). They accept, and thereupon the allusions to the feminine vows in the Casey edition end, but further attention is paid to them in Ritchie: 10) Fesonas repeats her vow (8530-31) and is married to Porrus, Alexander’s choice of a husband for her. 11) Alexander asks Ydorus to choose her mate. Because she has been attracted to him for some time, her choice of Betis is an acceptable fulfillment of her vow to remain true to her love (8565-75). 12) Edea’s vow to restore the peacock appears to be forgotten. There is little justification to consider the Restor du paon an organic sequel, for nothing in the text suggests an immediate transition. Indeed, all evidence hints

Alexander traditions.

that the narrative remains independent, only later inserted into the wider The fact is that the pattern of the gab genre evinces no “rule” requiring that each and every boast be executed. In the Voyage the author had selected for performance those gabs that enhance and complete his tale. The essen-

tial feature is the guidance the vows impart to the narrative, in contrast with the lyric gap, for example, in which consequences of boasting are neglected. The battle narrative in the Voeux du paon is punctuated with reminders of the vows. The peacock banqueters often recall their boasts or express their desires to accomplish them, while some are confirmed by another character’s observations. ‘The vague outline of a structure of execution frequently occurs: the boaster’s recollection acts as a sort of introduction alerting the reader that a vow is about to be realized. The reminder corresponds roughly to Elyot’s invitation during the vowing session, but the execution of the vows never displays the compact tripartite structure of the vows themselves (invitation, promise, comment). Occasionally during the battle the knights allude to the foolishness or the outrageousness of their vows. Cassamus’s vow is equated with “musardie” (6509f.), while Porrus’s is considered “fox” (foolish) (6193) and “outrageus” (8065). Yet Clarus feels deprived because he missed the opportunity to vow in front of ladies:

200 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Conment porrai grans cops souffrir ne endurer? (l. 5081)

The spirit of joy, pride, and particularly flirtation is epitomized in spritely fashion when Porrus explains to Clarus the circumstances of the Peacock Vows:

Je vouai en couvent de bonne volenté, Mais li lieus le devoit et li joli pensé, Li respons amourous et li regart emblé Des iex vairs et rians par debonnaireté, Et li tres grans orguex que je vi assemblé Des barons Alixandre et de ceuls de Caldé! (Il. 5146-51)

Thus is disclosed a distinctive mark of the Voeux du paon: the stimulus to

boast for sexual motives, the pleasure of a pretty thought, an amorous response, stolen glances, sparkling eyes. Although women were present at Beowulf’s boasting, and not forgotten in Vagn Akason’s thoughts at Sveinn’s

hall or Olivier’s at Constantinople, here the feminine interest vies with knightly prowess as a primary objective. Boasting before women is a trait that will be emphasized by the author of the derivative Voeux du héron. Sexual attractions are established in the Voeux du paon from the beginning. Betis admits his interest in Ydorus (537-40), whom he will end up marrying. Edea so impulsively displays her attraction to the Baudrain that Fesonas notices it (13 40ff.): “Compaigne,” dist Phezone, “je croi que vous |’amés!” (1. 1354)

And at the ending the author (or the redactors) pairs off five of the warriors

in matrimony: Porrus and Fesonas, Betis and Ydorus, the Baudrain and Edea, Elyot and Marcien, and Gadifer and Lydoine (who is sought for him by Emenidus). Even the enemy knights Porrus and Marcien are deemed worthy of this honor dispensed by Alexander. (Cf. Thomas, 17.) Aside from the sexual play, Porrus alludes to the good will required by the setting (“li lieus le devoit”), i.e., the joyous atmosphere that Cassamus had in mind when he suggested reviving the custom that day. Joy, rather than the somewhat stark humor of the Voyage, presides in the Voeux du paon.

Outright slapstick occurs, too. When Lyone approaches Clarus’s pavillon he requests the aid of a young man dressed in a silken tunic, a hint that the latter has a bent toward foppery (4476-77). In exchange for carrying

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 201 the message of his challenge to Clarus’s eldest son, Lyone promises the dandy his coat, provided the enemy wins the joust: “Tu averas ma cote, se je sui descendus.” (I. 4482)

The herald’s covetousness, however, spurs him to demand the coat with loud shouts even before the combat has begun. ‘The hullaballoo he raises frightens Lyone’s steed, and his effort to grab the knight’s coat off his back causes the horse to rear up and send him flying: Plus de .ii1j. millierz en firent grant risée, Qui dient en gabois: “Tien or ceste ventrée!”” (ll. 4553-54)

The slapstick continues, it seems to me, in the encounter between the impetuous Lyone and the haughty Canaan. In a few short lines the narrator 12 Here gabois means ‘obscene jeering’. The word gab and its derivatives occur frequently enough to merit comment. It has retained its general and primitive meanings without any trace of the sense found in the Voyage or of the particular meaning I have ascribed to it as the name for a literary genre. As a verb, gaber is often accoompanied with rire and jouer, e.g., ll. 1929, 2222, 2655, 2765, 2845, 5727, 8383. The author implies

a definition by juxtaposing in 5729 the phrase: “en parlant s’esbanoie.” Along with ‘laugh’ and ‘play’ is found the primitive sense ‘mock’, |. 4424, but especially 2780, where Fesonas ridicules the Baudrain during their chess game. Edea’s comment further defines the usage: “vous savés en gabois moult cruélment parler” (2785). Thus also the noun may mean ‘insult’ or ‘mockery.’ Gaberie (466) in its application to Gadifer’s innocent attempt to shield Cassamus from combat may be equated with ‘a joke that resembles an insult’, or ‘teasing’. The latter sense is surely the intention when all Perdicas’s companions joke with him after he refuses to alter his vow to fight on foot (6019). (The usage here is similar to that found in the First Continuation when Arthur’s knights tease Keu for believing he has won the joust.) Jacques de Longuyon distinguishes clearly between ‘vow’ (vez) and every form or sense of gab. In 5710-11, Alexander exclaims: “mout seront honnoré/S’il puent acomplir les veux quw’il ont voué,” which has nothing to do with the immediately following comment except to ridicule the vows made by the enemy:

Emenidus regarde, si a .j. ris jeté,

En gabois lia dit... (I. 5713-14)

Alexander proceeds to poke fun at Emenidus, whose horse had been threatened by Porrus’s boast. The most striking contrast between the two words occurs in the ironical narrative declaration:

Gadifers ... ert en grant pourchas De son veu acomplir, qu’il ne tint mie a gas. (Il. 6776-77)

202 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE relates the splintering of wooden lances, the smashing of body, chest, and shield, with the result that saddle and harness split from charger, and the two knights fall flat on their backs in the middle of the meadow, unconscious:

Ambedoi sont volé en mi lieu de lherbier, Longuement jurent jus, c’on nes pot esveiller. (Il. 4596-97)

Although Jacques de Longuyon may have had his tongue in his cheek as he related this incident (do I dare attribute to him a deficiency in maintaining the proper tone?), the characters themselves consider the joust a serious matter. By choosing the high-ranking Marcien, Clarus’s nephew, to escort him back to Epheson, they bestow honor on Lyone after he defeats Canaan, Clarus’s son, and thereby becomes the first to realize his vow. While a joyous, if not humorous, atmosphere reigns, and sexual flirtation has been emphasized, food and alcohol remain part of the boasting ritual in the Voeux du paon, echoing the gabs, and the gravity of mortal combat remains an imminent threat, as in Beowulf and the Fomsviking Saga.

Scholars (Ritchie, Whiting, Lommatzsch) have never failed to notice the similarities between the Voeux du paon and the Voyage de Charlemagne, which

is a sure sign that they sensed a literary category had taken shape, even though they refrained, consciously or unconsciously, from proposing it as a literary genre. Io be placed in a literary class does not require a work to be identical to its fellows in every characteristic. It need only be subject to a dominant force, in Jaussian terms, and that implies variety within generic limitations. While the Voeux du paon is set in a less comic ambiance than the Voyage de Charlemagne, Jacques’s poem betrays a second distinguishing quality: idyllic courtesy. It is a narrative in which chivalry triumphs without Christianity, Celtic mythology, or magic. Instead, courtesy reigns, evil is defeated, and the protagonists play games (chess, the “soothsayer king,”” and peacock vows) amidst women, whom they later marry. Although the knights are courteous to ladies, the kind of courtesy emphasized by Jacques is that which warriors show to each other. It is not the consideration elab-

orated by Sidney Painter in his French Chivalry, whereby the knights in Chrétien de Troyes, for example, even though they might outnumber the hero, always fight him one by one, or in the epic where a warrior in full battle dress refuses to attack an unarmed enemy.'* The idealistic combat13 See the discussion by Ernest Hoepffner, “Les Voeux du Paon et les Demandes Amoureuses.”

4 Painter, Prench Chivalry, 32-34.

CRYSTALLIZATION S 203 ants in our tale practice such extreme courtesy that they occasionally violate, unwittingly, another tenet of chivalry: loyalty." Courtesy marks the Voeux du paon deeply and sets this text apart within the gab tradition. Boasting and the joy of accomplishing the vows outweigh any sense of hostility among the characters. Gone is the vengeance of King Sveinn, the irate impulsiveness of Hugon of Constantinople, the disdainful

arrogance of the Seneschal Keu, and the hint of tragedy in Vivien’s or Beowulf’s struggles. Dembowski suggests that such manifestations of idealization in the fourteenth century betray a nostalgia for the knighthood

of bygone days in the first attempts at romanticizing the Middle Ages, which would be pursued with such flair in the nineteenth century.!° Alongside the societal genesis of the make-believe courtesy in the Voeux du paon also functions the spirit of magnanimity associated with the legend of Alexander.'” Both converge in this text to distinguish it from other crystallizations of the gab genre.

Like many earlier accretions to the Alexander material in French, the Voeux du paon was a separate entity only subsequently inserted into the legend. The problem of its ending and its (con)fusion with the beginning of the Restor du paon merely emphasizes this tradition. Further, the names of characters link it to earlier tales, despite the shifts in personalities and behavior that Jacques de Longuyon introduced. In the Alexandre de Paris, Porrus is king of India and a longtime enemy of the emperor, who is finally killed in single combat.!* In the Fuerre de Gadres, the defeated warriors of Babylon are treated with extreme generosity, conduct which Jacques expands into the outrageous courtesy of the Voeux du paon. The sprinkling of epic style in the poem echoes the earlier genre but is insufficient to place it squarely therein. A rare address to the public (“seignors,” |. 3841) heads a laisse similaire, but the rhymed Alexandrines and the triumph of courtesy over loyalty hint that the epic was now merely a memory, not a living genre.

'S For a full discussion of the theme, see John L. Grigsby, “Courtesy in Les Voeux du Paon.”

16 Peter Dembowski discerned “strong tendencies” in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to restore “great stories of the past.” See “Whom and What Did Galien Restore?” 97. On the nineteenth century, see Janine R. Dakyns, The Middle Ages in French Literature, 1851-1900. 17 Giacchetti emphasizes the evolution into a “sensibilité mondaine,” an emergent literary mood in the early fourteenth century, which insists on the vision of Alexander as a “miroir des vertus héroiques et courtoises.” See A. Giacchetti, “Le Personnage d’Alexandre dans les Voeux du Paon,” 361. 18 Jean Frappier and Reinhold R. Grimm, Le Roman jusqu’a la fin du XII siécle, Partie historique, 158-59; Lhe Medieval French Roman d’Alexandre, vol. 2, Version of Alexandre de

Paris: Text, ed. E. C. Armstrong et al.

204 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE It is perhaps more than a startling coincidence that both the Voeux du paon and the Voyage de Charlemagne were composed in twelve-syllable lines. Thus even a nod at epic or romance fails to acknowledge the true nature of the poem. Just as the gab reshaped the epic mold of the Voyage, so also

its descendant, the vow, informs the “roman de Cassamus.” Scholars, I repeat, consistently recognize the similarities between the Voeux and the Voyage, for neither represents a hapax in its genre like Aucassin et Nicolette,

the sole example of a chante-fable. Some of them go a step farther and conceive of what has been called the Paon- or vow-cycle. Admittedly, mem-

bers of this group of poems display interdependence, and it merits identification as a sub-category of the narrative. I propose merely to add the Paon group hypothetically and provisionally to the gab genre. When the texts become available in worthy critical editions, my hypothesis can be further explored. Blumenfeld-Kosinski has taken significant first steps toward interpreting two of these texts.'? Here I limit myself to the discussion of potential genre and to the examination of two of the best-known imitations of Les Voeux du paon: Les Voeux de l’épervier and Les Voeux du héron.?®

2. Les Voeux de Pépervier In contrast to the lengthy Voeux du paon, the Voeux de l’épervier’s 562 rhymed

alexandrines place it closer in size to the Voyage de Charlemagne. This ob-

scure and slender piece was composed to commemorate Henry of Luxembourg’s expedition to Rome in 1310, which, according to the editor G. Wolfram, is one of the most thoroughly documented journeys bequeathed to us by medieval chroniclers.’! Even though the daily details of the actual '? Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, “The Poetics of Continuation in the Paon Cycle” and “Historiography and the Voeux de l’épervier.” 20’The Voeux du Paon’s influence has been felt especially in regard to the introduction of the Nine Worthies. See George Cary, The Medieval Alexander, 32. It has also been suggested that the author of the Adliterative Morte Arthure imitated this text in the epi-

sode in which the British knights jump to Arthur’s support after the Roman Emperor Lucius has imposed a tribute on Britain. True, after Arthur orders a sumptuous feast, several rise to specify the deeds they will perform (see King Arthur’s Death: The Middle English “Stanzaic Morte Arthur” and “Alliterative Morte Arthure”, ed. Larry D. Benson, ll. 170-219, 247-400). Lacking, however, is the symbolic reverence of the peacock, or of any bird. In fact, the situation resembles more the boasts proffered at Constantinople than those of the Paon. The whole episode, furthermore, could have been exclusively inspired by the original source, Geoffrey of Monmouth (ix, 15), for the first speech in the English narrative is Cador’s, whom Geoffrey portrayed as welcoming the opportu-

nity for war because the Britons had been lolling about like wastrels. See J. L. N. O’Loughlin, “The English Alliterative Romances,” 523. 21 Les Voeux de Pépervier, ed. G. Wolfram and F. Bonnardot, 177.

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 205 trip are recorded in a journal (Wolfram, 177 n. 1), the heart of the narrative,

the vowing session, is not a part of this historical record and thus was created as a fiction, but one reported by alleged witnesses of the event. (Wolfram has assiduously sifted the evidence and concludes [191] that Simon de Marville is a likely, but inconclusive, candidate for the identity of the poet.) Its dependence on the Voeux du paon and its mimesis of history

against the backdrop of the gab tradition pinpoint the fusion of literature and custom that can produce genre. Of the texts reviewed so far, the Voeux de l’épervier is both the least known and the least esthetically appealing. But from its patent links with history, i.e., a perceived reality, and its emergence into narrative verse, it merits our attention because of the light it may cast on the genesis of a genre. Its obscurity has been compounded by the rarity of the edition published in a regional series, Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft ftir lothringische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, and the destruction in 1944 of the single manuscript. Although Bonnardot includes a translation on facing pages, the edition’s

inaccessibility and the paucity of studies devoted to the Epervier amply justify a résumé here.??

I. Henry, in his castle in Luxembourg, sleeping peacefully beside his faithful wife, dreams that he is in Rome seated on the emperor’s throne, revered by the Peers of Alemania, and flanked by two hounds that are white

on the outside but black within. Henry delights in the dogs, but one of them thrusts his paws into the king’s mouth and tears out his heart. The king awakens with a start. His wife, no irritating adversary here, comforts him. The narrator rapidly recounts that Henry is crowned king of Alemania at Aix, manages to have his son occupy the throne of Bohemia, and decides to visit Rome. No other information on Henry’s motives to make the trip is offered. The burghers of Metz greet him with generosity, especially Philippe le Gronnais, the king’s close friend. Henry crosses Burgundy, Savoy, and Mont Cenis. After capturing four strongholds, he stops at Milan. ‘The narrator slows his pace to relate in detail the banquet held in this Italian city.

IT. It is May; nightingale and thrush sing. Henry swells with joy, seated at the table amidst his loving wife and the twelve “best knights alive.” 22 Scholars generally agree that the first two lines imitate the Paon:

Aprés ce que Hanrey olt deden Mets conquis, Et a force de bras de lour guerre acomplis, (Epervier, ll. 1-2) Aprés ce qu’Alixandres ot Dedephur conquis Et a force d’espee occis le duc Melchis, (Paon, Il. 1~2)

206 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE UI. Henry complains of the difficulty of being king, of serving Jesus Christ, of maintaining his law. If any of these courageous barons requested

his aid, he observes, he would jump to their side. But now they have all come to serve him.

IV. The queen points out the presence of twelve Peers of Germany: (1) Thibaut de Liége (Thiébaut le Bar, bishop of Liége), (2) Guy de Namur,

(3) Henri le Flamand (de Namur), (4) the Count of Savoy and (5 and 6) his two sons, (7) Leopold of Austria, (8) the Duke of Bavaria, (g) the Dauphin of Vienna, (10) the Archbishop of ‘Trier, (11) Gauthier de Monttferrane, and (12) Régnier de Brabant. She laments the absence of the Wallerand, Henry’s brother, for if he were there, thirteen of the world’s bravest knights would share their table. She also points out a disgruntled captain,

who is probably not one of the aforementioned peers.?? Henry sends a squire to fetch the Wallerand. V. The messenger finds the Wallerand enjoying the company of a maiden and feeding plover’s wings to his cherished sparrow hawk. Reluctantly the Wallerand leaves the girl, with a kiss, and goes off to the palace where Henry and his barons are feasting. Distracted, and blind in one eye, he bumps into the door while entering. The bird is torn loose from its ties, and both master and bird fall to the floor. Bishop Thibaut mocks him: no wonder an accident happens when a half-blind man comes to a palace. ‘The Wallerand responds laughingly that the bishop is as blind as he. Thibaut

| seizes the bird, kills it on the spot, and recalls that the famous Porrus had once slain a peacock and that knights had made vows to the dead bird. He suggests that they follow suit and pronounces the first vow. He promises to fight for Henry’s elevation to emperor, and afterwards to accompany him on a Crusade against the Saracens in Jerusalem, unless death takes him first.

VI. Thibaut summons Guy de Namur to vow. He courteously refuses, recalling that his ancestor had lost his fiefdom by warring on the French.

! VII. The Bishop insists, on the grounds that Guy has the prowess of roo men, that he has earned the love of the daughter of the Duke of 23 Wolfram (53 n. 80; cf. 53 n. 79 and 231 n. 199) considers whether the unidentified

captain may be Guido de la Torre, the historical captain of Milan, but rejects him on the grounds that Guido had not been named among the 12 peers, nor would he have been likely to be. He concludes that Gaulthier de Montferrane, whom he identifies as the historical “Theodor von Montferrat,” is intended. Gégou, on the other hand (“Du Roi de Sicile” 76; 87 n. 17), is convinced that Guido della Torre, “Gouverneur de Milan,” is indeed both the disgruntled captain of |. 80 and the vower, the Captain of Melinotto, of Il. 199 and 233. Because nothing prevents a non-peer from engaging in the vowing,

and indeed tradition demands an adversary relationship, it seems likely that Gégou’s identification is the correct one.

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 207 Lorraine, and has attained honor for the king. The praise and the mention of love convince Guy to vow that he will protect Henry from poisoning

and will break four lances against the gates of Brescia.”* | VIII. Thibaut’s response is to caress the sparrow hawk, praising its beauty and prowess to inspire more vows. He invites the participation of Henri de Namur, who hesitates, pleading that he lacks property. IX. Nevertheless, to please the assembly of friends, Henri vows to descend onto the plain if the army comes forth from Brescia. ‘The queen, in a rare reaction to any of the vows, praises the Fleming’s courage. X. Thibaut turns to the Captain of Melinotto, who brags that at dawn he will be seen leading 300 Lombards in a tournament, which he will win; if he does not, he will pay all expenses for Henry’s expedition to Rome.” The enraged Wallerand makes a counter-vow. He disdains the notion of a tournament and deems the offer of subsidization an insult to the king’s wealth, power and generosity. He promises to lead 200 Alemanians to the proposed tournament and, should the Captain win, to accompany the king back to Luxembourg, whence he will never again request help from the Lombards.”¢

XI. With courtesy vaguely reminiscent of the Paon, the captain strives to calm the Wallerand, recalling that all are happily gathered to give joy and solace to King Henry. The motives for vowing are, in his view, pleasure, pride, prowess, prurience, and profit. He stands ready to make amends 2+’'The structure of Guy de Namur’s vow follows that of Porrus, who had to be flattered (by Floridas) before he would participate: Que, qui poroit proesce en .x. pars desmembrer On en feroit .x. preus pour grant painne endurer. (Paon, ll. 4036-37) Just as Porrus had been inspired by Fesonas’s presence to double the force of his vow (see Il. 4039-41), Guy is affected by praise in the identical manner: Et quant li vassault s’oyt se hautement lower Et l'amour de la damme cui il debvoit amer, D’un dair d’amour trenchant li vat Amour donner Sen les draps [vétements] empirier ne la chair entamer; Si en volrait son voult plux hautement doubler. (Epervier, \l. 150-54) 25 The boaster’s phrase: “si c’on bien me vairait,” with its future of voir at the rhyme, recalls the formula in the gabs of the Voyage. The queen earlier (IJ. 80-84) had suggested that the Captain sought harm because he was jealous of Henry’s conquests. Her plea to invite the Wallerand foreshadows the Wallerand’s counter-vow. 26 Bonnardot notes that |. 219 echoes the Paon. The scene recalls the reaction to the Baudrain’s “outrageous” vow in Epheson, but the names are reversed here: the definite

article precedes the friendly name Wallerand instead of the hostile name Baudrain, perhaps a feeble effort to demonstrate independence from the model.

208 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE according to the chivalric code, that is, to begin the tournament immediately.

XII. The Count of Savoy makes a vow without invitation, but he recognizes that he will be unable to speak without increasing the anger and chagrin that already charge the atmosphere, and that Henry is powerless to halt the bragging. He vows to remain alone at the tournament’s center and to win it by chasing away all challengers. XI. Henry begins his vow by commenting to his queen that, if accomplished, the boasts to the sparrow hawk will confirm great valor. He promises to make Thibaut pope and to punish by death any of his subjects who engage in a tournament or similar activity before he has taken Brescia. He proposes that all agree to conquer those people beyond the salt sea whom God does not love, and that his men remain his companions. XIV. Thibaut reassures the king that he will have Brescia and all of Lombardy. In an invitation reminiscent of Cassamus’s exhortation of Porrus, he urges Lupol (Leopold) to vow. The Austrian promises to lead Henry and his army to Rome, and to fight King Robert to the death, if necessary. XV. Thibaut appeals to the Duke of Bavaria, who vows to accompany Henry to Rome and, should Henry die, to replace him as king.’’ XVI. Thibaut approaches a knight of Bar, who hesitates to participate because of his poverty: “Car je suix povrez hom, si ne me doie venter” (1. 314), but he promises to take charge of the rearguard, and he vows to have

himself quartered should the king lose even four golden deniers. (The references to the rearguard and to quartering surely allude to the Roland.) XVII. The sparrow-hawk vows in the Milan palace are now completed. The session in honor of Henry has lasted all night, and dawn breaks. The preparations for the tournament are made, but Henry separates the jousters: “Or sont bien li lour volz de .II. pairs acomplis” (1. 327).78 As his foragers set out ahead of the main force, the king leaves Milan for Brescia. Soon several will accomplish their vows (335). Guy de Namur arms himself, breaks a lance against the gates, and demands a joust. The defenders reply with stones and darts. Guy breaks four lances, and after he returns to camp he dies from poisoned food, thus completing his entire vow. XVIII. The narrator recalls that Henry, now before Brescia, has sworn to take the city. The Wallerand leads the attacks and captures Thibaut de 27'The Duke’s vow is reminiscent of the inheritance boasts with the braggarfull pronounced by Vikings. See chapter 2. 8 Bonnardot translates: “Or voici que les voeux sont déja pour les deux tiers accomplis.” Presumably he understands that three vows have been dealt with by Henry’s act: the Captain of Melinotto’s, the Wallerand’s, and the Duke of Savoy’s. One could also count half of King Henry’s own vow, the cessation of any combat by his men until Brescia is captured.

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 209 Bressane, who is dragged behind horses and hanged. The Wallerand is struck by an arrow, which he pulls from the wound as if nothing had hurt him. In camp he yearns for the company of women and for drink. He finally dies from debauchery, much to Henry’s sorrow. XIX. The strophe begins as a J/aisse similaire with a variant from the preceding laisse’s first line. Henry shouts his battle cry “Luxembourg!” and promises vengeance for the Wallerand’s death. Henri de Namur is on foot, carrying the king’s banner. King Henry takes Brescia and heads for Genoa, where the queen dies of poison (historically, from an epidemic). The king travels with Thibaut de Liege to Rome, where a papal legate awards him the emperor’s crown. King Robert learns of his arrival, seizes the Tiber bridges, and engages him in many skirmishes. XX. The Archbishop of Trier, alone, meets the Orsini at Campo de’ Fiori. XXI. The Archbishop leads the Alemanians and the Bavarians against the Orsini and the Bidaux. XXII. The Archbishop breaks his elegant sword and loses his horse in battle. XXIII. A vassal, whose silver shield bears three hammers (Friedrich von Hammerstein), brings a mount to the Archbishop. XXIV. After a night’s rest, the Archbishop returns to battle, joined by Bishop Thibaut, who is

caught in a narrow street, stripped of his armor, and stabbed to death. Thibaut’s vows are now completed, the narrator avers (455). XXV. The emperor laments the loss of Thibaut and of Guy de Namur. He falls in a swoon and is helped up by Guillaume de Lyon and Henri de Namur. The emperor calls for the Dominicans so that he may confess his sins. He leaves Rome while Guillaume de Lyon bears his standard; the knight of Bar who had vowed to bring up the rearguard is now called Jean de Fonte, and he keeps his promise with 10,000 men assigned to him by the emperor. Back in Rome, King Robert summons his barons. XXVI. Robert wonders why Henry has departed from Rome when, for every man he loses, six others loyal to Luxembourg will replace his fallen warrior. Charles, Robert’s nephew, replies “par le corps saint Denix” (481) that the emperor is sustained by goodness, beauty, high deeds and words, humility, and generosity. Robert regrets that they are not allies, a remark with no basis in fact, notes Wolfram (235, notes to Il. 486, 481), along with

| the fact that the poet has mistaken the identity of Charles. Meanwhile the saddened Henry besieges Florence on a very warm Feast Day of Our Lady. He attends Mass, but the Dominicans are plotting his assassination. ‘The priest has poisoned the Communion Bread. As the emperor drinks from the chalice, the poison takes effect. White has turned black, proclaims the narrator. The monarch withdraws to his chambers and sends for the Dominicans to learn why they planned his murder.

210 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE XXVII. Henry pardons them, arranges their safe conduct to Rome under the protection of Henri de Namur, and falls into the throes of death. XXVIII. A cleric offers to remove the venom from his mouth and body, but Henry refuses to give up the Body of Christ, which is inextricably mixed with the poison. He predicts that his men will face betrayal upon the moment of his death. XXIX. The barons promise to remain with him until his death, and to pursue the traitors only then. The emperor bequeaths to Henri de Namur his horse and arms, charges him with the distribution of the royal treasury, and requests that he carry tidings to his mother. He dies at Buon Covento. XXX. The barons grieve, but especially Henri de Namur, who laments that no emperor was more valiant since Alexander the Great. The body is transported to Pisa for burial. I agree with Blumenfeld-Kosinski that the author sought to confer the glory of Alexander on Henry, and that he intended to equate the Twelve Peers of Germany with the barons of Charlemagne: at Milan the queen calls attention to them (laisse IV) in a list reminiscent of that in laisse XII of the Roland.’? She requests the presence of the Wallerand, who makes an ominous thirteenth. ‘Ten vows are pronounced, but only six of the Peers participate. Thibaut de Liege vows first (laisse V), Guy de Namur second (VII), Henri de Namur third (IX), the Captain of Melinotto fourth (X), the Wallerand fifth (X), the Count of Savoy sixth (XII), King Henry seventh (XIII), Leopold of Austria eighth (XIV), the Duke of Bavaria ninth (XV), and Jean de Fonte, a knight from Bar, tenth and last (XVI). Remaining silent among the Peers are the two sons of the Count of Savoy, the Dauphin of Vienna, the Arch-

bishop of Trier (surprisingly, since he will be a major combatant in the battle of Rome), Gauthier de Montferrane, and Régnier de Brabant, while four vows, those of the Captain of Melinotto, the Wallerand, the king himself, and the Knight of Bar, make up the difference. The middle third of the vows (the fourth, fifth and sixth) concern the tournament proposed by the Captain. They constitute a threat to the king, because the loss of knights in jousting would jeopardize his expedition to Brescia and Rome. The ten vows are dispensed with or carried out in the narrative in the following order: the fourth, fifth, and sixth are cancelled by the partial fulfillment of the king’s vow (the seventh) on the morning of the departure for Brescia (XVII). The second vow, that of Guy de Namur, is completed in laisse XVI, and the third, that of Henri de Namur, in XIX. When Henry of Luxembourg takes Brescia (XIX), the second part of his vow is accom-

29 Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, “Historiography and Matiére Antique,” esp. 24.

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 211 plished. Leopold’s (the eighth) and the Duke’s (ninth) are at least partially fulfilled when they arrive at Rome with the king (XIX). Thibaut de Liege is killed, and is thus obviously absolved of further promise-keeping. His vow, first in the series, is taken care of in ninth place (XXIV). As the army leaves Rome, the Knight of Bar, Jean de Fonte, brings up the rearguard

(XXV), thus accomplishing the tenth vow in tenth place. No hierarchy such as was apparent in the Voyage de Charlemagne can be discerned, but in contrast to both the Voyage and the Paon, the author has remembered each vow in pursuing his narrative. Although the protagonist fails to accomplish his goal, and indeed meets death, the boasts and their consequences occupy

virtually all of the story: from line 48, when the king and his barons sit down at the feast table in Milan, to line 474, when the Knight of Bar leads the rearguard out of Rome. The prelude (47 lines) and the aftermath (88 lines) constitute less than a fourth of the poem. Although this bulk lends credence to my claim that the text falls into the genre of a gab, the boasts themselves lack that regular tripartite structure I have identified in previous texts: invitation, boast, comment. Thibaut

de Liége extends invitations to only six of the ten participants: Guy de Namur (laisse VI), Henri de Namur (VIII), the Captain of Melinotto (X), Leopold (XIV), the Duke of Bavaria (XV), and the Knight of Bar (XVI). One might increase the number by one, to include Thibaut’s introduction to the vowing, thus leaving only three uninvited: the Wallerand, the Count of Savoy, and the king. Since the Wallerand reacts spontaneously in anger to the captain’s boast, as had Floridas to the Baudrain’s vow, and the king also reacts, expressing displeasure at the three preceding commitments to engage in the detrimental tournament, only the Count of Savoy appears to have broken with the protocol; he has not broken with tradition, however, for Guillaume in the Voyage impetuously offers his gab with invitation from no one. Lacking, too, in the Voeux de l’épervier is such ongoing commentary as is exemplified by Hugh’s escut and by various interventions in the Paon. If

one counts the violent response of the Wallerand as a vow instead of a comment, only four of the boasts receive a judgment: (1) The queen com-

pliments Henri de Namur for his courage (ll. 196-97). (2) The Captain attempts to calm down the Wallerand in a relatively long reply (a whole laisse: XI, ll. 233-42), in which he lists the motives for chivalric boasting. (3) King Henry notes that the vows are valid only if realized, but he offers no specific critique of the preceding boast (Il. 254-56). (4) Finally Thibaut de Liége reassures the king that his wishes will be fulfilled (XIV, Il. 275So).

The vows themselves, as in the Paon, are always headed by the words ‘Je voulz et promés.” The second half of the line is occupied by one of five

212 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE formulas, as determined by rhyming needs.*° Each vow may reflect the speaker’s individuality, indeed a historical verity, for although a theme of aiding the king prevails, a variety of boasting is evident in this text, in contrast to, say, the Roland. The Epervier’s close links to history have led Fabienne Gégou to propose that the poem’s structure is modeled more upon Adam de la Halle’s Roi de Sicile (from 1284) than upon the Voeux du paon, arguing that the latter is much too long to be a valid source.*! She maintains that the Epervier and the Roi are both “political pamphlets,” or thoroughly utilitarian attempts to sway opinion, but her case for the political purpose of the Epervier rests

upon some very weak points indeed. First is her uncritical acceptance of Simon de Marville as the author of the poem (Wolfram’s conjectural identification, however soundly argued, must remain only conjecture), and second is her supposition that “Simon” intended to implicate Robert of Na-

ples, the “King Robert” of the poem, in the plot to poison Henry of Luxembourg. However, not only does the poet fail to suggest anything of the sort, but the Robert he portrays actually expressses regret that Henry is not his friend (a contrast to anything that is known about the historical Robert, according to Wolfram, 2357486), which suggests to me that the poet may have been inspired by the Voewx du paon, in which courtesy triumphs over war. In the end, Gégou admits the dependency on the Paon far enough to say: “Simon [est] trop asservi, ... trop désireux d’étre au

gout du jour en suivant la mode des voeux sur un oiseau” (84). Thus we can agree that, whatever the intentions of “Simon” might have been, he follows a literary structure, which I maintain is that of the latent gab genre. Renate Blumenthal-Kosinski has provided a far more convincing interpretation of the Voeux de l’épervier. She argues that the poet effectively reworked the Voeux du paon to create a consolatio for Henry’s followers. By

linking the Luxembourg monarch to Alexander the Great, the Epervier author called forth memories of the Macedonian’s death by poisoning, she maintains, in order to soothe the grief-stricken subjects who had just lost their leader in the prime of his life. Her assertions that the vows were at the heart of the poem and that in it historiography was inextricably interwoven with literature support my contention that the Voeux de l’Epervier lies outside of conventional genre classification. 30 “Et je vol et promet et mez corps le tenrait,” Il. 123, 204, 225; “Et je vol et promet et si veulz after,” Il. 155, 248, 315; “Je vol et si promet, et si nen faulrai mie,” 1. 186; “Et

je voulz et promés, et si tenrais couvent,” Il. 257, 299; “Et je voul et promés a la chivallerie,” |. 285. 31 Fabienne Gégou, “Du Roi de Sicile aux Voeux de ?Epervier.”

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 213 The elements of the gab as a genre reappear in the Voeux de P’Epervier. Warriors in a foreign land are assembled around a banquet table at night on the eve of battle. Although no representative of a host king, such as the eschut in the Voyage, or Unferd in Beowulf, is present, an adversary from the

host country is sketched in the Captain of Melinotto, who vows to lead 300 Lombard locals in a tournament. The participants are held responsible for their boasts and carry them out within the narrative. From the beginning of the vowing banquet in Milan to the end of their accomplishment, some 425 out of 562 lines are filled (ll. 49-474), 1.e., about 75 percent of the text. Indeed 277 lines, or 49 per cent of the poem, are devoted merely to the pronouncement of the vows. The quantitative parallels with the Voyage, in which half the poem concerns the gabs, are, then, nearly complete. Although the tale relates a tragedy (so does Beowulf), the boasting is

carried on in an atmosphere of joy and relief from tension. While both Thomas (23) and Bonnardot (242) consider the tone solemn or grave, the text betrays the contrary. When the Wallerand stumbles into the banquet hall, Bishop Thibaut de Liége playfully teases him in a mock insult: “Quant borgne sen conduit en .I. palais venrait, Dont serait grant mervelle se il meschiét n’i ait.” dl. 111-12)

The Wallerand understands this jibe to be a “gab” in the primitive sense of the word and responds with laughter: Et li Wallerant rist que respondus li ait: “Sire, se je suis borgne et en vous moin n’en ait.” (il. 113-14)

[And the Wallerand laughingly replies: “Sire, if ’m half-blind, you are no less so.”| Later the Captain of Melinotto reminds all that they are gathered together “en sollas et en joie” (1. 234). In sum, although history intrudes to “interfere” with custom and literary tradition, the Voeux de PEpervier can justifiably be classed in the genre of gab.*?

3. Les Voeux du héron — Les Voeux du héron claims to report an incident occurring one September

morn in 1338 that led to the Hundred Years’ War. In this poem of 442 32 There are also curious echoes of the Voewx de ’Epervier in Thomas Malory’s Morte Arthur, bk. V, ch. 12.

214 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE alexandrines, too short for an epic and too long to be a lyric, the author portrays Robert d’Artois as a challenger of Edward III (Edowart). Robert calls the king of England a coward for allegedly failing to maintain hegemony over France. Robert complains of having been unjustly severed from his family by the king of France to whom he was once a close advisor. He seeks vengeance and a victorious return to his homeland. With Edouart as king of France, he would be able to regain his privileged status and rejoin his family. Wright provides a history of Robert’s imbroglio with Philippe de Valois, who did indeed imprison his wife and children in separate strongholds.?? Robert, a descendant of St. Louis, had attempted to regain Artois against the claims of his aunt, the Countess Mahaut. Because of a forgery,

and through no fault of Robert’s, believes Wright, the king of France turned against his influential friend and former benefactor. This reversal enraged Robert, who hired assassins and even tried witchcraft to destroy his enemies. Whether these events are true or not, they reflect the reputation Robert had earned as instigator of war between the kings of France and England. It would be naive to trust that this poem dramatizes the exact details of a vowing session of such far-reaching consequences, yet some have lent it credence, and Froissart has bequeathed us a hint that something of the sort very probably took place.*+ Despite the allusions to actual events,

the text remains a literary document, and not a historical account. Among the several points the Héron shares with the Epervier is the unavailability of the text. Despite the attempts by La Curne de Sainte-Palaye (1781), Chalon and Delecourt (1839), Thomas Wright (1859), and Giulio Bertoni (1921), no reliable, easily attainable critical edition exists.*> Its relative shortness permits a summary: 3 The Vows of the Heron, ed. and trans. Thomas Wright, x—xvii.

34 Ritchie (1:xlvi) argues in favor of a historical basis, and see references in B. J. Whiting, “The Vows of the Heron,” 268 n. 4. At least two comments by Froissart support the contention that a vowing session occurred. Sir Walter Manny surprises the town of Mortaigne, “having vowed in England before some lords and ladies that he would be the first to enter France” (Froissart, trans. Johnes, 21). When the Earl of Montfort is granted an interview at Windsor, King Edward, “in the presence of Lord Robert d’Artois, the barons of England, and the earl’s followers, promised that he would aid, defend, and preserve him as his liegeman against any one—the King of France— to the utmost of his royal power” (29). 35 "To remedy this lacuna, I am preparing a critical edition of Les Voeux du Héron based

on all currently known manuscripts. [Ed.: This project was taken up by Norris J. Lacy after the author’s death and is now available in the Garland Library of Medieval Literature: The Vows of the Heron (Les Voeux du héron): A Middle-French Vowing Poem, ed. John L. Grigsby and Norris J. Lacy, trans. Norris J. Lacy (New York, 1992).] Too often scholars have believed that the poem survived in a single manuscript; see, for example, Auguste Molinier and Arthur Langfors in their normally reliable Incipit des poémes an-

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 215 Laisse I. In September, 1338, as the season declines, Edouart is filled with thoughts of love and peace. Surrounded by his court in London, his happy state of mind forbids any notion of quarrel with his cousin, the king of France. Yet trouble brews, complains the narrator. II. Robert d’Artois, an esteemed knight banished from France, has been welcomed by the English king. One day Robert, remembering pleasant days in France, is taken with the desire to go falconing. He captures a heron, has it prepared for a banquet, and places it between two silver platters. With two masters of the vielle, a lute player, and two fine young maidens, both daughters of the nobility, he forms a parade, and takes his place

at the head. Bearing the heron, he enters the London palace shouting to the royal court: “Widiés les rens! Widiés, mauvaise gent falis! Laissiés passer les preus, cul amours ont sousprins! Vechi viande as preux, a chiaux qui sont soubgis As dames amoureuses, qui tant ont le cler vis.”

(“Open the ranks! Open the way, miserable failures that you are! Let pass the courageous, whom Love has overtaken. Here before you is food for the courageous, for those who are subject to amorous, beautiful ladies.”

He boasts that because the heron he sets before them is the most cowardly of birds, it is an appropriate object of vowing for the weak, especially for

Edouart, who has lost France through his frail spirit. The English king blushes with indignation and immediately swears to invade France, to engage in battle with Philippe de Valois, and to renounce the treaty concluded with him during his natve youth. Robert snickers, satisfied now that his scheme is working, and mutters that through the heron a great war will begin. He bewails the misfortune that has estranged him from the French king, who has imprisoned his family and exiled him, even though Robert descends from St. Louis and was once Philippe’s close advisor. He pledges to invade France and return to his rightful home. III. Robert continues his parade in earnest, presenting the heron to the guests present at the banquet and inviting each to make a vow. The Earl of Salisbury (Salebrin), seated next to the daughter of the Earl of Derby térieurs au XVI siécle (Paris, 1917), 132. Five manuscripts have survived: Bern, Burgerbibliothek 323; Brussels, Bibliothéque Royale, 10433, 11138 and IV, 601; and Bnk, francais 9222. For a description of all but Brussels IV, 601, see Alfred Coville, “Les Voeux du Héron,” Histoire Littéraire de la France 38, 269-70. A Latin adaptation of the text appears in Chronographia Regum Francorum, ed. H. Moranvillé, vol. 2 (Paris, 1893), 35-38.

216 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE (Derbi), whom he loves, refuses to vow without her assistance. He requests

that she place a finger over his right eye. She complies by putting two fingers over it. “Is it indeed closed?” he queries. Assured that it is, he vows that it will thus remain until he has made an inferno of the French country-

side and battled the king. The lady lifts up her fingers and the eye stays closed, much to Salebrin’s joy. IV. Robert turns to Salebrin’s beloved and invites her to vow. She prom-

ises to remain faithful to this valiant knight, who has just made such a courageous vow in her honor, and assures him that she will give herself to him after he has accomplished it. V. Robert continues his plan to do all possible harm to France and stops in front of Wautier de Manny, who pledges to incinerate the fortress ruled

by Godemar du Fay, and to depart thereafter with his troops safe and unwounded.

VI. Derbi hastens to respond to Robert’s invitation by promising to demand a joust with Louis de Flandres and, if he refuses, to scorch his land. Robert is gleeful. VII. The Earl of Suffolk (Souffort) vows to accompany Edouart on the continent and there to seek out the king of Bohemia (Behaigne), whose charger he will seize after having unhorsed him in combat. Jehan de Beaumont, a relative of said king, angrily promises to grab Souffort and deliver him to Behaigne. VIII. Souffort calms Beaumont by reminding him of their common goal: to invade France and to return safely. Meanwhile Robert, still in haste to carry out his scheme, passes on to John of Valkenberg Jehan de Faukemont). IX. Robert praises the warrior qualities of Faukemont, who hesitates to enter the vowing session because of his poverty, but he complies finally, in order to preserve his honor, by swearing to accompany the English king overseas and, if he passes by Cambrésis, to burn everything in sight: mon-

asteries, churches, pregnant women, children, even his relatives and friends, should they stand in the king’s way. His vow earns the admiration of the assembly. X. Robert returns to his parade and politely asks Jehan de Beaumont to join in. Jehan confesses his astonishment at the words he has just heard. He recalls that boasting is worth nothing without execution. When we are in taverns, he goes on, drinking strong wine in the presence of ladies with smooth breasts in tight blouses, whose eyes are resplendent with smiling beauty, Nature goads us to the conquest of Yaumont and Agoulant (Saracen warriors), and others to that of Roland and Olivier. Later, however, when

we arrive on the battlefield mounted on our swift warhorses, shields in place and lances lowered, a strange iciness chills our bones, and our limbs

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 217 grow weak. When our adversaries approach, we would rather be in a cellar so deep that we could never be seen. Nonetheless Jehan joins in. He vows

to accompany the king to France and to be his field marshal, even at the risk of losing all his properties. He adds a proviso: Should the king of France recall him from his exile, he will leave Edouart in an honorable manner. The English king is satisfied with the vow and its conditions. XI. Robert, with his cortége behind him, kneels before the queen to allow her to participate before the heron is devoured. She hesitates, not having sought her husband’s permission. Edouart exhorts her to open her heart, and promises to execute her vow himself. She discloses that she is pregnant and vows that, if childbirth begins before she can accompany the king on the overseas expedition to realize his own vow, she will kill herself and the fetus with a large steel knife. Upon hearing this, the king terminates the vowing session. The heron is divided up among the guests, and even

the queen eats a portion, the narrator observes. The king immediately prepares for the invasion, has ships outfitted, and the queen gets on board. In Antwerp she gives birth to a “gracious son,” who is baptized Lyon (Lionel) d’Anvers. Thus the queen acquits herself of her vow. Before the others can be accomplished, the narrator declares, many an honorable man will die, many a knight will be sorrowful, and many a lady will be weary of it all.3 Despite the Héron’s close links to history, dependence on previous texts of the “vow cycle” is patent. Robert repeats (I. 68) Cassamus’s famous words characterizing the roasted fowl to which vows are offered as “viande as preux.” The dispute among participants stemming from an insult of a relative or leader (the Baudrain in the Paon, the Wallerand in the Epervier) is imitated by Jehan de Beaumont’s angry retort (although it does not take the form of a counter-vow) to Faukemont’s boast. Like the shorter preceding poem, the Epervier, the Héron dramatizes only ten, not twelve or thirteen, vows. A final and most obvious parallel is the capture, killing, and preparation of the bird by a visitor in the host’s castle. Robert was modeled

on Porrus, but while the latter, in an idyllic manner appropriate to the Alexandrian tradition, shoots the peacock with an arrow as potent as Cupid’s, the Count of Artois relies on his falcon to bag his game. The distant echoes of previous gab-like poems can be heard: A foreigner arranges a challenge, in the manner of a flyting, but here the challenger defies the host king directly rather than through a representative. Edouart 36'The narrator’s comments are vaguely reminiscent of the Hideous Damsel’s dire predictions in Le Conte du Graal, ll. 4678-82 (Roach ed.). At the beginning of the Héron, too, King Edouart Loeis, pensive in his court, recalls Arthur’s first appearance in Perceval, Il. go7-11.

218 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE is holding court in London, dwelling on thoughts of love and peace. If drinking is not specified as part of the heron banquet, Jehan de Beaumont does hint at the consumption of strong wines. Iwo women participate in the session: Derbi’s daughter and the queen; others were surely present. Although the narrator establishes a morbid atmosphere with his prophecies of doom, Robert sets a joyous, almost carefree tone by forming his small cortége with its musicians and its chanteuses, who sing lyrics entitled “Je vois a la vredure, car amours le m’aprent” (1. 151) and “Loiaux amours nous mainent, qui nous ont encanté” (ll. 257, 353). Robert gleefully jumps from place to place as he incites the knights to vow, bearing the heron on silver plates and followed by his little band. Emulating the hierarchy evinced in earlier gab-like poems, the author shows the king boasting first. The monarch is, however, not treated gently, for Robert badgers him into vowing by insulting him. Edouart answers Robert’s insult with excuses: He had been deceived because of his youth, but he will wreak vengeance by exacting a tribute that one would never expect from a young lord or marquis. He specifies a deadline: the year 13.46 (1. 114), a reference to the Battle of Crécy, where the historical Edward III did indeed humiliate French chivalry. Edouart’s intent to seek revenge is clear. The once innocent child will have come back to haunt those elders who hoodwinked him. Whiting’s interpretation (277) that the year 1346 had half elapsed before the king had demonstrated any trace of effectiveness seems to dismiss unfairly the poet’s allusion to one of Phillipe’s most pathetic defeats, which was reported by Froissart. The king of France had ordered the front line to halt in order

to postpone the attack for a more propitious moment, but the rear lines refused, apparently out of chivalric pride, to cease their advance, with the result that the warriors stumbled over each other, those in the rear believing

that the leaders were retreating. The French king had failed utterly to control his men. The flower of French chivalry ended up killing numbers of innocent peasants who had appeared on the road merely to witness the events. Froissart attributes the defeat to French “bad management and disorder.”>” Meanwhile the English, who remained well disciplined under their king, took advantage of the French confusion and soundly routed them. Even though the king of England had dealt no serious military blows to Phillipe before 1346, he assumed the arms and title of king of France in 1339 at Antwerp (Froissart, 23-24), so that the historical Edward had defied his enemy and renounced his allegiance to him before the year had passed, just as he promised in his boast (Il. 95-102).

37 Froissart, Chronicles, trans. Johnes, 44.

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 219 Robert, master of ceremonies, justifiably comes second in the boasting hierarchy. In a sense he exhorts himself to vow by reviewing his personal

situation, but above all by emphasizing the motivation for the boasting session. He snickers under his breath that he has had his way by means of the heron, compressing into one sentence the symbol of the poem and the springboard of its action. Robert promises to return to France and fight. Whiting (277) observes that Robert accompanied the historical Edward to France twice, but played a significant role only in the second campaign (July, 1340). In this enterprise he is twice embarrassed: At Saint-Omer the besieged populace break out of the city walls and defeat the attackers. At Tournai the siege simply fails. Finally Robert, in 1342, is wounded in an attempt to take Vannes and dies. Although Robert is the protagonist, he is more than just the villain Whiting sees in him (278). As instigator of these

vows, and surely dead when the poem was composed (sometime after 1346), he emerges as the ironic toy of fate, at least from a historian’s point of view. The mockery of the master of ceremonies is reminiscent of the characterization of Charlemagne in the Voyage, who led the gab session and was later held responsible for the words of his subjects. Robert’s fate (outside the narrative, of course) is tragic. Accountability for one’s speech remains an essential ingredient of the gab genre as I have defined it. Robert resumes his parade, the musicians play, the maidens sing, and the narrator takes note of the momentary joy while at the same time predicting catastrophe. Robert jumps over the table to seek vow number three from Salebrin (the Earl of Salisbury), who hesitates and requests aid from the damsel beside him. He verifies that she is holding one eye firmly closed with her fingers before vowing to keep this eye shut, by will power alone,

until he has gone to France, set fire to the countryside, fought against Phillipe’s men, and given support to Edouart. Robert’s satisfaction is reported by the narrator, who further observes—in retrospect rather than in prediction—that the eye remained closed throughout the war, thus confirming at the outset that the boast was achieved. Since the historical Salisbury had lost one of his eyes already, in a 1333 battle against the Scots (Whiting, 269), the poet appears to be mingling tradition with poetic inventiveness. Absent any knowledge of the historic facts, the boast to keep one eye closed through a season of violence and peril is preposterous, worthy of the boasters at Constantinople in its imagination. Given such knowledge, the poet’s historic vantage point (betrayed by his allusion to events in 1346, at least eight years after the supposed occurrence of this boasting session) supports the thought that he was smiling cynically as he created this character. Robert need not restart his parade to obtain a fourth vow, for he merely turns to the maiden seated beside Salebrin, “la fille au conte Derbi” (1.

220 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE 208). She replies immediately, promising to take no husband until Salebrin has accomplished his vow. When he returns, she continues, she will yield her heart to him. The narrator registers Salebrin’s delight. Whiting sought in vain to find a model for this young lady. The historical daughter of the Earl of Derby, he maintains, would not have been betrothed to a man older than her father. He is wrong to sense scandal, however, when he translates literally /e mien cors (218) as the girl’s promise to yield her body, since this Old French expression, meaning simply ‘myself’, is a favored one in the Voeux du héron. The inspiration for this vow is surely literary rather than historical, for it echoes the Voeux du paon, in which Ydorus promises to remain faithful to her lover, and reaffirms the poet’s reliance on his imagination as well as on real events.

Robert hastily seeks a fifth participant, for he is eager to goad others into serving his personal motives. He calls on Wautier de Manny, who, after brief hesitation, promises to attack Godemar du Fay. Robert’s remark in response to this vow, that many an honorable man will die before the act is achieved, reflects the narrator’s attitude rather than Robert’s own selfcentered delight at having tricked the English knights into the invasion of France. (Cf. Il. 119-23 in particular.) The poet failed to maintain the character’s integrity, apparently because he felt the need for a comment on the

boast. The presence of a regular commentator, such as the eschut at Constantinople, would have eliminated this inconsistency. ‘The tripartite division of the gab is so “natural” that it seems to spring up even though the framework of the diegesis has made no allowance for it. The phenomenon reinforces the notion that underlying genre rules were at work here. The characterization of Walter of Manny benefits from at least three accounts of the historical prototype’s foray into France (Whiting, 270-71). According to one, recorded by Froissart, Walter and his men entered the town through a gate lacking sentries but were stopped at the tower when an alert guard raised the alarm. A second version, also by Froissart but reminiscent of the Charroi de Nimes, supposes that Walter’s men disguised themselves as peasant women coming to sell their dairy products. ‘They overcame the guard, let the rest of Manny’s warriors enter, but were in the end frustrated by an impenetrable door. ‘They left unvictorious, setting two or three houses on fire to signal their presence. In another manuscript their attack is reduced to the last-mentioned event, a few fires started as a token of their entry. Whiting (270-71) believed that the poet, by choosing this failed exploit as the substance of Walter de Manny’s vow when notably successful ones were on the record, was attempting to belittle this famous warrior. Halfway through the vows, the narrator recalls the activities of Robert’s cortege. While the musicians play, and the maidens cry out the merits of

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 221 loyal love and its enchantment, Robert lifts on high the silver platters bearing the heron and bids “conte Derbi” join in. To the invitation (in indirect

discourse), Derbi replies without hesitation that he will accompany Edouart to France, where he will demand a joust with Louis de Flandres, a member of Philippe’s court. If Louis refuses, Derbi vows to burn everything that lies before his enemy’s eyes. Robert’s reaction is more consistent this time with the personality we have come to know. Such an act of destruction, he joyfully declares, would be a boon for him. It would enable him to rejoin his children and ravage those who have grieved him. In 1337

the historical Earl of Derby had participated in an amphibious assault against Cadsant, a fortress isle under the command of Louis de Flandres. On November 11 of that year, Derby rushed forward fully armed, slipped, fell, and would have met an evil fate under his heavy armor had not Walter of Manny rescued him from this vulnerable position. Whiting (271) wondered why Walter’s vow did not refer to this heroic deed instead of the humiliations he suffered at Godemar du Fay’s city. The reason is, quite likely, that vows (and gabs) were directed toward the future. Since Derby had already performed the rescue, it was eliminated from consideration. Whiting wanted to believe that the boasts aimed at recalling the participants’ defeats rather than their successes. The tradition to which the Voeux belongs is, however, one in which boasters are forced into awkward situations from which they may (or may not) narrowly escape. The J6msvikings met failure because of the heitstrengingar, which took them to Norway, and Charlemagne and his warriors faced ostensibly insurmountable danger because of their gabs. Finally, we never know exactly which circumstances our

poet may have had in mind, since his narrative of the vows’ execution remains, with two exceptions (Salebrin’s and the queen’s) a vague generality.

The seventh vow is spoken by “le conte de Souffort,” i.e., Robert Ufford, Earl of Suffolk, who replies immediately to Robert’s invitation that he will personally attack the king of Bohemia and humiliate him by unhorsing him and stealing his charger. Reaction comes not from Robert, but from an enraged Jehan de Beaumont, who happens to be a relative of the threatened Bohemian. Jehan promises to turn Souffort over to the king, but his declaration lacks the formulas normally associated with vows, “veu et promech,” and “aviegne qu’aviegne,” so that it may properly be classed as a comment. Souffort responds with courteous words of conciliation. He argues that love and courage inspire such words and deeds and recalls that all those present have the same goal: to challenge France and return safely to England. Beaumont is quiet for the moment. Whiting (271-72) cites two accounts of a misadventure suffered by the historical Earls of Suffolk

and Salisbury, who were taken prisoner at Lille in 1340. The English chroniclers lay the blame on their foolhardiness in chasing the routed

222 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE French, who turned on their pursuers at an opportune moment. [ronically, they were eventually saved by the king of Bohemia. Froissart relates that the two knights were ambushed because they scoffed at legitimate warnings. In any case, the historical John of Hainault (the poet’s Jehan de Beaumont) apparently contributed in no way to Suffolk’s capture and imprisonment, although he was associated with King John of Bohemia. If these

facts prove anything, they show once again that a poet’s knowledge of history as we now know it can be imperfect or biased. But the literary tradition behind the Souffort-Beaumont dispute is less difficult to identify. Surely it is the vowing and countervowing dramatized in the stormy episodes of the Baudrain, who insults Alexander in the Paon, and of the Wallerand in the Epervier, who hears in the Captain’s boast an insult to his king, Henry of Luxembourg. Meanwhile Robert moves on to the eighth participant, Jehan de Faukemont, who balks at the flattering invitation on the grounds that his lower status impedes him from boasting. ‘Io remain honorable, however, he vows that, should the English king enter France through Cambrésis, he will go

before and set fire to all in his path. He promises to spare no church or monastery, no pregnant woman, child, or even friend if Edouart is threatened. The crowd showers its praises on this man who would so honor his lord. The historical prototype of Faukemont was John of Valkenberg, lord of Sittard and Borne, who had received gifts from King Edward in 1337 (Whiting, 272). This vow is, Whiting maintains, anchored in history: the sacking and burning of Cambrésis, September 20 to 25, 1339. The atrocities committed by John of Hainault (our Beaumont) and Valkenberg are a matter of record and merit repeating here. Gilles le Muisit (d. 1352) noted in his Chronicle, “et habuerunt Anglici spolia et lucra infinita, et violaverunt mulieres, et infantibus truncabant uni pedem, alteri manum, alteri aurem; et, membratim truncates eos, dicebant: ‘Sic apparebit quod rex Anglie fuit in hiis partibus,’ alia plura enormia faciendo.”?* Whiting also uncovered the following passage from an account in the Cambray municipal library: “Enforchoient femmes gisans d’enfans, femmes mariées et bonnes filles et aux jeunes enfans copoient a l’ung un pied, a l’autre les oreilles et aux aultres le nez et a aulcuns crevoient les yeux et disoient chest pour che qu'il vous souvienne que le roi d’Angleterre et les Anglois ont esté en Cambrésis.”°° Whiting wondered if the poet’s inclusion of the boast reflected a “savage

38 Chronicle, ed. H. Lemaitre (Société de histoire de France, Paris, 1906), 118, cited by Whiting, 273 n. 3. 99 Henry Dubrulle, Cambrai a la Fin du moyen age (Lille, 1903), 285 n. 1, cited by Whiting, 273 n. 4.

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 223 humor” (273). In fact he doubtless wished to portray a thoroughly loyal subject who would go to outrageous extremes for his king (Il. 347-48). As Robert approaches Jehan de Beaumont, the poet again highlights the cortége, the musicians and maidens who proclaim love’s worth. Jehan’s hesitation takes the form of a tirade against the vanity of boasting after drink, which impressed ‘Tobler so much that he quoted it in its entirety.*° Jehan expresses his amazement at so many words that will remain empty unless turned into action. ‘The warmth of wine, he declares, in the presence of alluring women, inspires words that are hard to match in the reality of

the following day. But Jehan’s eloquent sermon is not an excuse, for he promises to become the king’s marshal and lead the royal armies into France, even at the risk of devastating property loss. This was no small offer; the difficulty of command was often proved in battles in which nobles

decided to turn tail or, even worse, failed at the last minute to take part at all. Despite this level-headed and ostensibly loyal expression, Jehan hedges: If the king of France recalls him, he continues, he vouches to depart from Edouart in an honorable way. Nonetheless Edouart declares his satisfaction with Jehan’s vow with profuse thanks. The historical John of Hainault, as

he is better known, did indeed switch camps on July 21, 1346, a month before the Battle of Crécy. The agreement is documented (Whiting, 276)

and netted John a fortune from the king of France. The terms of the agreement allowed John to retain his honor, as the poem “predicts,” for he was allowed to lend support to the English throne as long as he did not fight against the French. Jehan de Beaumont, as ninth vower, falls next to last in the session, and indeed makes the last boast pronounced by a knight. Its length and its position near the end of the narrative are climactic, for, as Tobler’s reaction has demonstrated, we tend to remember Jehan’s condemnation of boasting (“vantise” is the word the character employs rather

than Robert’s word “veu”). If there is a “moral message” relayed by the poet, it is contained in Jehan’s warning against the pitfalls of boasting after drinking. If Whiting is correct in viewing the material chosen for the vows

as denigrating rather than prestigious, the poet would seem to be condemning an ancient custom. Thus the genre criticizes itself. The tenth and final vow includes still another mention of Robert’s never

forgotten cortege. He hastily moves on, this time kneeling before the queen. Her hesitation takes the form of a request that her husband permit her to vow, which contrasts her to Charlemagne’s queen but not to the wife of Henri de Luxembourg. Edouart’s support is unstinting as he pledges to aid her in any act she may wish to undertake. The king’s approval is in

© Adolf ‘Tobler, “Exegetisches.”

224 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE fact a second invitation. The queen reveals that she is pregnant. She vows to lull the infant if its birth comes before the king allows her to accompany him abroad to advance the vow that he himself has made. Her proposal to kill herself and her fetus for purposes of blackmail shocks modern readers, let alone the king, who is so stunned that he stops the boasting session.*! Whiting finds her vow less “indelicate” than that and detects “even a note of burlesque in her remarks,” all of which are “surely in a serio-jocose vein” (277). We can clarify her perplexing boast somewhat by reviewing what she has just heard and placing her in the tradition of gab-like poems. The pompous boasts, obviously pronounced after drinking and, as Jehan de Beaumont implies, designed to impress the ladies of the company, have aimed at death and destruction, including the murder of pregnant mothers and the mutilation of children. Does this character so dread the disruption of the peaceful situation described at the beginning of the narrative that she defies her husband? Her apparently docile obedience to her husband’s command now appears as defiance, more subtle than that of Charlemagne’s queen, but just as effective. Her words reveal despair, but at the same time they spur the men on to the fulfillment of their boasts, just as Charlemagne was obliged to prove his claim to bear sword and crown better than any ruler in the world. Edouart’s wife boasts, however, in such a way that she remains loyal, for she claims that she will either halt the progress of nature or use a large steel knife, and all to aid her husband. The queen’s vow and Salebrin’s are the only ones specifically identified as achieved. The poet hastens through the preparations for the expedition to Antwerp and the journey itself. There the queen gives birth to a son, Lyon d’Anwers, the historical Lionel of Antwerp, born on November 29, 1338. [This event, duly recorded in the narrative, allows one to deduce that the king had accomplished his vow also, despite Whiting’s claim that by

that date Edward II had in no way harmed France. The major thrust of our Edouart’s vow, however, concerns his threat to defy the heretofore unchallenged Phillipe de Valois before the year is out: accompanied by his army, he will wait a month in Flanders for the French king to accept his challenge. Those conditions appear to have been carried out within the narrative. The poet’s declaration makes it “true” regardless of what history records. Although obviously dependent on its predecessors, Les Voeux du paon and Les Voeux de l’épervier, the Héron displays a structural organization that recalls the Voyage de Charlemagne. The earlier vow poems exhibit a loose“| Cf. the comments by Chalon and Delecourt. Blanchefleur, in her distress, also threatened to commit suicide with a steel knife. See Chrétien de Troyes, Le Conte du Graal, ed. Roach, Il. 2028-37.

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 225 ness (or a freedom) of form that the Héron poet has tightened into a series of repeated entities. Thus, as in the Voyage, a tripartite structure recurs: invitation, vow, reaction. The variations that spring up merely exercise

poetic liberty, i.e., repetition modified to avoid monotony. As with the Voyage and the Paon, the structure and content of the vows can be reduced to a table:

Person Intro./Vow/Comment Content

vowing (total lines) of vow

1. Edouart 22/26/4 (52) to invade France 2. Robert 15/6/0211) to fight in France 3. Salebrin 4/10/1_ (15) to keep eye closed

4. Fille de Derbi 2/8/2 (12) to remain faithful

5. Walter de Manny 2/15/2 (19) to burn Godemar du Fay’s town

6. Derbi 3/18/4 = (25) to challenge Louis de Flandres 7. Souffort 2/13/10 (25) to unhorse the king of Bohemia

8. Faukemont 2/11/10 — (15) to destroy Cambrésis

9. Beaumont 1/20/11 = (22) to act as marshal 10. The queen 3/10/1_ = (14) to bear child abroad

‘To each of the vows, except Robert’s, a reaction is registered by one of the participants, a characteristic that echoes the eschut’s judgments in the Voyage. The king is ridiculed, as was Charlemagne. The involvement of Derbi’s daughter may echo the réle of Hugon’s daughter in the Voyage, but more likely it mirrors the feminine participation in the Paon. From each boast emerges a personality much more distinct than the ones hinted at in the gabs at Constantinople. The perceptible hierarchy (the monarch begins

the vows) is like that in the Paon in being disrupted by a high-ranking boaster (in this case the queen). The formality of the vows is assured by the pledge “veu et promech,” which occurs in nine of the ten, while in half

(the second, third, sixth, seventh, and eighth) the formula “aviegne qu’aviegne” is appended. In half also, the hesitation motif that originated in the Paon is repeated (the third, fifth, eighth, ninth, and tenth). The Héron

poet has also stylized the presentation of the bird to the diners. Robert’s élan and the musical parade he leads are referred to in eight of the ten invitations. In the remaining two they would have been superfluous: Robert needs no fanfare to pronounce his own boast, and Derbi’s daughter is so

226 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE near to Salebrin that one flourish serves for both. This poem is distinctive in its portrayal of Robert’s energy and agility: He jumps over the table to incite Salebrin, and, in contrast to events in the Paon and the Epervier, he cuts short the boasters’ dispute (one might label it the Baudrain variant) between Souffort and Beaumont (Il. 324-28). Of the crystallizations examined in this chapter, Les Voeux du héron comes

closest to deserving the name of pure gad, for its characteristics fall neatly into the definition outlined at the end of chapter 3. The major shortfall is the question of the inclusion of the accomplished feats within the narrative itself, for this element constitutes a major distinction between the gab as a literary genre and the lyric gap. I noted that for a work to qualify as a gab,

the consequences of the boast must be reported within the story rather than assumed as a possible event outside the narration, as might be done for a boasting poem by Bertran de Born. In the Héron only two vows are explicitly accomplished, while the others remain at the level of general prediction: there will be a tragic outcome. Yet the poet’s allusions to the achievement of the vows, his intertwining of the queen’s vow with Edouart’s at the end of the tale, and his assurances that Salebrin was able to perform

the impossible by keeping his eye closed throughout the wars, prove his consciousness of the link between action and words. If his declarations about most of the vows remain vague, his delimitation of the queen’s accomplishment emerges as a symbolic realization for all those who dared accept the challenge of vowing to the heron. The poem’s intimate links to history become more and more an interference with its literary, or fictional, setting.” The relative abundance of historical accounts tempts the interpreter to wander beyond the text to seek both the source and the outcome of events that appropriately belong entirely within the confines of the narrative. Such speculation fails to interpret the poem under the aspect of diegesis, but it may have been part of the poet’s intention to invite comparison between well-known events and the material of his imagination. In a sense he seems to be asking the readers themselves to recall that all the vows were accomplished. This poem is, then, the ultimate crystallization of the gab as a latent sub-genre. It was created as the age of chivalry was waning and French knighthood was in the process of disintegrating. Military tactics were failing against the English long bow and the first primitive cannons. Armor was becoming heavy, and ostentation hazardous. The burden of taxation imposed on the populace to provide for glittering liveries, ill-planned in-

” For a fuller discussion of such “interference,” see John L. Grigsby, “UIntertextualité interrompue par l’histoire: le cas des Voeux du Héron.”

CRYSTALLIZATIONS 227 vasions, and useless warfare had already inspired two revolts, so that one may well wonder why the Revolution of 1789 was so long in coming. That the Voeux du héron was composed in an environment for which we have a fair amount of historical information allows us to observe in detail

how custom and human nature relate to the birth of literary works, an opportunity not always accorded to students of medieval literature. Quite possibly the vows were actually spoken, although not in the exact manner the poet has imagined. Whiting exaggerated when he labeled the poem a “bitter burlesque” (278), but was correct in placing it in the same category as the Voyage de Charlemagne. Looking at the earlier poem from the perspective of the later piece, one might conjecture that both poets strove for the same effect: the capturing of social custom in literature. Although the session in Constantinople is far from historical accuracy, it betrays a viewpoint which, by its very fiction, relates a truth. “La littérature est un mensonge qui dit la vérité,” said Cocteau. For medieval warriors, boasting after drink had become a mutable ritual tagged with various names: flyting, heitstrenging, gab, vow. I have chosen to label the phenomenon, in its tension with established literary types, as the gab. This lexical limitation is appropriate, for when the knightly custom dies, so also does the word.

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Conclusion: The Gab’s Last Grasp

LIKE THOSE FACING THE PERPLEXING Voyage de Charlemagne, scholars of En-

glish literature have been stymied when trying to classify the sixteenthcentury King Arthur and King Cornwall. Francis James Child, editor of the only version published to date, was tempted to exclude it from his collection of English ballads.! John W. Davis, after a thorough examination of the characteristics normally attributed to this class of poems, wondered if it should rather be identified as a “short romance,” but he decided to label it a “minstrel ballad” because it displays a certain kinship to that category.’

In the course of tracing the sources of Arthur and Cornwall, Davis also explored the problem of categorizing the Voyage de Charlemagne, once again

exemplifying the puzzle scholars have constantly faced in determining the genre of that fascinating poem. Both these works are literary expressions in search of a label. Both adopt the poetic techniques of a “conventional” genre, but defy classification into that type. Why not, then, label them with an appropriate term, such as gab? Ironically imitating the manuscript tradition of the Voyage de Charle-

magne, the English poem has come down to us in a single manuscript (Percy Folio, British Library, MS Add. 27879; see Davis, 48), but unfortunately in a severely mutilated form. Bishop Thomas Percy (1729-1811) saved it from annihilation when the maids of his friend, Humphrey Pitt,

| “King Arthur and King Cornwall” in The English and Scottish Ballads, ed. Child, 274-88. [Ed. note: See Davis, 10 n. 27, for Child’s doubts about including the work in his collection. ] ? Davis, “Le Pelerinage de Charlemagne and ‘King Arthur and King Cornwall’,” 20.

229

230 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE were about to light a parlor fire with the remaining leaves. Some 300 lines

of the poem escaped destruction, and Davis estimates that the original length was close to 625 lines, i.e., somewhat shorter than the Voyage’s 870.’ Significantly, both are brief (like the Voeux de Heron), for the crystallization

of the gab as a genre prefers brevity to the amplitude of romance or epic. Davis dates the poem in the late sixteenth century, while Child (280) suggested hesitantly that the terminus a quo is 1399, the date of a version of the Green Knight in which the name Bredbeddle occurs. No one can deny that the ballad combines the main story line of the Voyage de Charlemagne with motifs from late Arthurian legends, whatever the direct sources may have been. Davis believes that the ballad probably attained its surviving form through the Welsh translation of the Voyage in the White Book of Roderick (380; cf. 227). Through the five centuries of transmission, the narrative acquired remnants of the Celtic Otherworld and transformed the protagonist’s adversary from a wealthy emperor with a magic palace (Hugh of Constantinople) into an outright magician (King Cornwall). Significantly, the “new” version retained the adversarial aspect of the Voyage, which certain interpreters of the French tradition had preferred to neglect. The balladeer’s concept of his source tends to corroborate the view that the narrative core of the Voyage was a competition between spouses, with emphasis on the comic aspects of such a conflict. Despite the Arthurian framework, the ballad mimics the Voyage. Because this crystallization of the gab is as rarely printed as the others we have proposed, it merits a brief summary here. The actual beginning is lost. In the first extant passage, Arthur is in the process of bragging to his nephew Gawain about his fine round table when Queen Guenever contradicts him: she knows of a round table whose trestle alone is worth more than this paltry piece of furniture, even more than Arthur’s halls and treasury of gold, and the table’s abode is more valuable than all of Little Britain. When the queen refuses to name the place, Arthur vows to find it, naming Sir Marramiles and Sir ‘Tristeram as two of his companions on the search. Following a lacuna, the text provides only the information that the company, five in number, will be disguised in palmers’ weed. If any excuse for an ostensible pilgrimage was offered, it has been lost.

They travel far and wide until they come to a palace gate whose porter is clad in gold from head to foot. For a fee, the porter discloses that this wealthy kingdom belongs to King Cornwall. Arthur requests one night’s lodging and two meals

3 See Davis’s discussion, 48-50.

CONCLUSION 231 “For his love that was of virgin borne.” (18b)*

From something in the porter’s announcement, most of which is lost in a lacuna, King Cornwall suspects who his visitors are: “These palmers had been in Brittaine.” (21d)

The moment his guests arrive, he asks them if they happen to know a certain King Arthur. The disguised Arthur admits only to having seen him once, whereupon King Cornwall Sayes: “Seven yeere I was clad and fed In Litle Brittaine, in a bower; I had a daughter by King Arthur’s wife, That now is called my flower; For King Arthur, that kindly cockward, Hath none such in his bower.” (24)

Cornwall adds that this lady was so beautiful that she could open a dying man’s eyes. He then asks for his steed and boasts that he can ride as far on it in one day as can Arthur on any of his in three. The cuckold agrees that the horse is surely a fine one, but any further nuance has been swallowed in the next lacuna. The resumption of the narrative finds Arthur, “a greeived man,” being led to the bedroom with his companions. “That lodly groome,” who had apparently been introduced in the lost portion, is hidden “under the rubchadler” next to Arthur’s bed (1.e., a spy was planted in the room): It was more for King Cornwall’s pleasure

Than it was for King Arthur’s pay. (32d) Arthur, in bed, pronounces the following formula: “Tle make mine avow to God,

And alsoe to the Trinity, — (33cd)

and vows that he will be Cornwall’s bane (murderer) or never return to Little Britain. + References are to Child’s edition. The number alludes to the strophe, the letter to the line in that strophe.

232 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Gawaine comments that the vow is “unadvised” because it is unjust to fight against a Christian king (just as it would have been wrong for Charlemagne to battle Hugh of Constantinople, a Christian monarch). Arthur accuses Gawaine of cowardice: “Goe home, and drinke wine in thine owne country.” (35d) (No doubt can remain that wine had been consumed earlier at the dinner requested by Arthur, the “meales meat” in 17a.) Thus goaded (invited), Gawaine repeats Arthur’s two-line formula and vows to take “yonder faire lady” (37c) with him back to Little Britain, where he will work his will with her. The lady remains unspecified, but the echoes of Olivier’s gab resound clearly.

Again falls a lacuna, which doubtless contained a challenge by Arthur to Sir Bredbeddle and the formulaic introduction just quoted. In the extant text, Sir Bredbeddle promises to wrestle with “yon lodly feend.” Arthur wonders what weapons this palmer might use. Happily, Bredbeddle the “pilgrim” has brought with him his “Collen” brand, a knife (from Milan?), and a Danish ax. He bursts open the rub-chandler, and out flies “a lodly feend” with seven heads and one body (43cd).° Bredbeddle’s weapons fail, but he has a book, written by Our Lord and sealed with his blood, which he had found washed up from the sea. Again comes a lacuna, whose contents must have contained the information that Bredbeddle was called the

Green Knight, that his book had power to control the fiend, and that he , had managed to imprison the fiend in a wall of stone (like the stone pillar in the Voyage, surmises Child, 280). Sir Bredbeddle reports his success to Arthur, who wants to see the monster for himself. The fiend’s likeness is conjured up by the Green Knight, and once again the seven-headed monster appears spewing flame; subsequently it is called the “Burlow-beanie.”° After another lacuna, the narrator confesses that the knights stood, apparently speechless, for an hour; he knows not what they did (58d). At this point the plot varies from that of the Voyage and from the flyting tradition, for the host’s representative, the Burlow-beanie, connives with

> [Ed. note: See Child, 288, notes to 31b and 43b, for variants “thrub chadler” and “trubchandler.”] 6 Davis’s lexical research led him to conclude that the “[th]rub chadler” was probably a bin for coal cinders. “Beany” was adjectival for ‘small coals’ (232-33). Small and large cinders, some still hot, might have created a “firesprite” (Davis’s word), and if “burlow” may be related to ‘burly’, that element of the name might mean that the phenomenon was of monstrous dimensions.

CONCLUSION 233 the guests (who are aided by their book) to execute their boasts in the absence of the host himself. At the Green Knight’s command, the fiend brings forth the “fair steed” they had seen earlier. Marramiles, who had probably vowed to master it (Child 280), claims that riding it is his task (61d). He fails, however, and pleads with Bredbeddle for help. In response to Sir Bredbeddle’s conjure, the Burlow-beanie discloses that they must fetch a golden wand in King Cornwall’s study window and strike the steed with it three times. In the ensuing lacuna, Tristeram very likely reminded his peers that he had promised to blow “a lowd blast” (69d) on a horn that is somehow in his possession but whose being blown apparently requires a certain kind of powder. Bredbeddle again conjures up the monster, this time to fetch the necessary powder box. Sir Tristeram blends its powder with milk and swills it about in his horn, which he blows so hard that he splits it up the middle.

Finally, the knights obtain a sword in the same manner. Bredbeddle hands it to Arthur and recommends that he use it to fulfill his vow to be Cornwall’s bane: And goe strike off King Cornewall’s head In bed were he doth lye. (76cd)

This the king does, and he impales the head on the sword’s tip. The final lacuna leaves the ending to the imagination. Child surmises that the remaining knights keep all their vows (280). The tradition would suggest that Arthur returns to Little Britain to confront his wife. Since this monarch is distinctly more violent and angry than the gentle Charles of the Voyage, he may have punished her, perhaps by exile or imprisonment, in the Arthurian tradition. Like Charles, at any rate, he returns home triumphant. Arthur manifests legitimate pride, but none of the outrageous vanity we saw in Charlemagne. Moreover, the British king is like the tribal chieftain of legend in lacking the great emperor’s power over many peoples. His quest is disguised as a pilgrimage: the Knights of the Round Table are clad in palmers’ weed, but they are only five, in contrast to the multitudes of pilgrims who accompany Charles to the Holy Land. The vows, while pronounced just before bedtime and apparently after wine (Str. 35), are venge-

ful, more in line with the primitive meaning of the Old Norse etymon gabba ‘to mock, insult’ than with the playful bragging practiced by Charles

and his Peers in Constantinople. The English poet has transformed the spy into a fire-breathing fiend named Burlow-beanie, who hides in what

234 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE may be a cauldron (Child 279 n.), but the dragonlike being makes no ritual response to the vows directed against Cornwall. Gawaine’s promise to work his will with “yonder faire lady” echoes the words of Olivier; Marramiles’s implicit vow to master Cornwall’s horse recalls the horsemanship of ‘Turpin; and Sir Tristeram’s feat, as he rends Cornwall’s horn down the middle, imitates that of Roland. The ritual hierarchy observed in the Constantinople gabs is slightly blurred, although the king does speak first, and a response is uttered by the knight who will pronounce the next vow. A book, which scholars like to identify as the New Testament, is substituted for the relics, and with its help the knights are able to command the Burlow-beanie to do their bidding. ‘The fiend (“the devill of hell,” exclaims Sir Marramile [Str. 63]) replaces the gentle angel who softly scolds Charlemagne for “gabbing.”’ The Ballad is far more violent than the Voyage, with bloody retaliation at its core. Charlemagne had indeed boasted of his swordsmanship and had threatened decapitation, but the French poet spared his public the gore so common to epics. The beheading motif reemerges at a crucial moment in the Ballad. Davis’s detailed comparison of the two poems shows some fifty points of similarity and proves without doubt that Arthur and Cornwall is an imitation of the Voyage de Charlemagne. Both he and Child had the good sense

to recognize the ultimate dependency of one extant poem on the other, thereby avoiding the risks of speculating about a lost common source. Indeed, that three boasts in each poem are executed with corresponding dosages of supernatural help would appear to exclude an intermediary. Despite the traits in common with Celtic literature that scholars in the Webster-

Loomis school profess to detect, this core structure acts as a signature identifying the particular art of the creator of the Voyage de Charlemagne, which the balladeer obviously chose as a model.® Arthur and Cornwall, though a beguiling piece, remains then an epigonic work, an echo of a tradition past its prime. Chivalry and its weapons of war—its armor, steeds, lances, and shields—have by this time been replaced by cannon and flintlocks, and fleet-footed soldiers now seek sturdy

shelter rather than attempt to carry it on their bodies. The New World had been discovered, Cervantes’s book written, and the Spanish Armada defeated when the extant version of King Arthur and King Cornwall saw the

’ [Ed. note: Child’s edition reads “Marramiles” in Strs. 61 and 62, “Marramile” in 63 and 64]. °K. G. T. Webster, “Arthur and Charlemagne”; Roger Sherman Loomis, Arthurian Tradition and Chrétien de Troyes, 134-36. Celtic scholars tend to follow this path. See Davis’s perceptive discussion, 65-70, and his convincing conclusion on the close relationship of the Voyage to the ballad, 371-82.

CONCLUSION 235 light of day. It is a fantasy, a fiction of bygone days, in a society no longer organized around the warrior. A final characteristic of the gab, discernible in retrospect, is its immediacy, its closeness to the public it mimics, for one can readily imagine the audience of the Voyage, if not actually participating in the drinking and boasting, certainly as capable thereof. King Arthur and King Cornwall is then farther from reality than any of the gab texts we have investigated. This ballad, like our key word in its time, reflects memories

rather than contemporary custom. Chivalry and the literature it engendered can now be imitated or remembered, but the seeds of the gab genre, latent or patent, can no longer germinate.

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Sources and Studies

1. Medieval Sources Cited Alexander. The Medieval French “Roman d’Alexandre.” Vol. 2, Version of Alexandre de Paris:

Text. Ed. E. C. Armstrong, E. L. Buffum, B. Edwards, and L. F. H. Lowe. Elliott Monographs 37. Princeton, 1937. The Medieval French “Roman d’Alexandre.” Vol. 4, “Le Roman du Fuerre” de Gadres

d’Eustache. Ed. E. C. Armstrong and Alfred Foulet. Elliott Monographs 39. Princeton, 1942. lhe Medieval French “Roman d’Alexandre.” Vol. 6, Version d’Alexandre de Paris. Introduction and Notes to Branch II. Ed. Alfred Foulet. Elliott Monographs 42. Princeton, 1976. El Libro de Alixandre. Ed. Alfred Morel-Fatio. Gesellschaft ftir Romanische Literatur 10. Dresden, 1906. Aliscans. Ed. Erich Wienbeck, Wilhelm Hartnacke, and Paul Rasch. Halle, 1903. | Alliterative Morte Arthure. Ed. Larry Benson. King Arthur’s Death: The Middle English “Stanzaic Morte Arthur” and “Alliterative Morte Arthure.” New York, 1974. Benedetto di S. Andrea. Chronicon. Ed. Giuseppe Zucchetti. I] “Chronicon” di Benedetto, Monaco di S. Andrea del Soracte. Rome, 1920. Beowulf.

Ed. and trans. Howell D. Chickering, Jr. Beowulf: A Dual-Language Edition. Garden City, N.Y., 1977. Trans. E. Talbot Donaldson. Beowulf: New York, 1966. Ed. Frederick Klaeber. Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg. 3rd ed. Lexington, Mass., 1950. Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube. Girart de Vienne. Ed. Wolfgang van Emden. SATF. Paris, 1972. Campeu Charlymaen. Ed. G. Hartwell Jones and trans. Robert Williams. The Gests of Charlemagne. In Selections from the Hengwrt MSS. London, 1892. 2:1-118, 437-517. Cercamon. Poésies. Les Poésies de Cercamon. Ed. Alfred Jeanroy. CEMA. Paris, 1922.

237

238 THE GABIN FRENCH LITERATURE Chanson de Guillaume. Ed. Duncan McMillan. 2 vols. SATF- Paris, 1949. Chanson de Roland.

Ed. Joseph Bédier. La Chanson de Roland. Paris, 1937. Ed. Gerard J. Brault. The Song of Roland: An Analytical Edition. 2 vols. University

Park, Penn., 1978. Ed. and trans. Gerard J. Brault. La Chanson de Roland. Student Ed. [with corrections to original ed.]. University Park, Penn., 1984. Ed. and trans. Gérard Moignet. La Chanson de Roland. Paris, 1969. Ed. Raoul Mortier. Les Textes de la Chanson de Roland. 10 vols. Paris, 1940-45. Charroi de Nimes. Trans. Fabienne Gégou. Paris, 1971. Chevalerie d’Ogier de Danemarche. Ed. Mario Eusebi. Milan, 1963. Chevalerie Vivien. Ed. A.-L. Terracher. Paris, 1909. Chrétien de Troyes. Le Chevalier de la charrette. Ed. Mario Roques. Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes.

Vol. 3. CFMA. 1958. Repr. Paris, 1965. Le Chevalier au lion. Ed. Mario Roques. Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes. Vol 4. CFMA. 1960. Repr. Paris, 1965. Le Chevalier au lion (Yvain). Trans. Claude Buridant and Jean ‘Trotin. Paris, 1972. Kristian von Troyes: Yuain (Der Loéwenritter). Ed. Wendelin Foerster. 4th ed. 1912. Repr. Geneva, 1977. Cligés. Ed. Alexandre Micha. Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes. Vol. 2. CEMA. Paris, 1957. Erec et Enide. Ed. Mario Roques. Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes. Vol. 1. CFMA. 1953. Repr. Paris, 1963.

Le Roman de Perceval ou le Conte du Graal. Ed. William Roach. 2nd ed. rev. Geneva, 1959. Chronographia regum francorum. Ed. H. Moranvillé. 2 vols. Société de histoire de France. Paris, 1891-93. “Les Continuations du Conte del Graal.” Ed. William Roach. In Les Romans du Graal aux XIlIe et XIIIe siécles, 107-18. Colloques Internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Paris, 1956. The Continuations of the Old French “Perceval” of Chrétien de Troyes. Ed. William Roach. 5 vols. Philadelphia, 1949-1983. Descriptio qualiter Karolus Magnus clavum et coronam Domini a Constantinopoli Aquisgrant detulerit qualiterque Carolus Calvus hec ad Sanctum Dyonisium retulerit. Ed. Gerhard Rauschen. In Die Legende Karls des Grossen im 11. und 12. fabrhundert.

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SOURCES AND STUDIES 239 Fierabras. Ed. A. Kroeber and G. Servois. Anciens Poétes de la France 4. Paris, 1860. Flamenca. Ed. and trans. René Lavaud and René Nelli. In Les Troubadours. [Bruges], 1960. Fled Bricend (The Feast of Briciu). Ed. George Henderson. Irish ‘Texts Society Pub-

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completed by Karl Helm, rev. by Ernst A. Ebbinghaus. Tiibingen, 1969. Ed. Willy Drogman. Das Hildebrandslied in der langobardischen Urfassung. Philologische Studien und Quellen. Berlin, 1959. Ed. C. W. M. Grein. Das Hildebrandslied. 2nd ed. Kassel, 1880. ‘Trans. Francis A. Wood. The Hildebrandslied. Chicago, 1914. Homer. The Ihad. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. Garden City, N.Y., 1974. Huon de Bordeaux. Ed. Pierre Ruelle. Travaux de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles 20. Bruxelles, 1960. Trish Sagas. Ed. Myles Dillon. Cork, 1968. Jacques de Longuyon. Les Voeux du paon. Ed. Brother Camillus Casey. “Les Voeux du paon. An Edition of the Manuscripts of the P Redaction.” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1956. Ed. R. L. Graeme Ritchie. Les Voeux du paon. In The Buik of Alexander by Fohn Barbour. 4 vols. The Scottish Text Society. Edinburgh, 1921-1929. Jean Bodel. Chanson des Saisnes. Ed. F. Menzel and E. Stengel. Jean Bodels Saxenlied. Ausgaben und Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der Romanischen Philologie g9100. Marburg, 1906-1909. Feu d’Adam. Ed. and trans. Henri Chamard. Le Mystere d’Adam. Paris, 1925. Ed. Robert A. Harden. In Trots pieces médiévales. New York, 1976.

240 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Jomsvikinga Saga. Ed. and trans. N. F. Blake. Jomsvikinga Saga—The Saga of the fomsvikings. London, 1962.

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tores Rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum Saec. VI-IX. 1, 1878. Repr. Hannover, 1964. Trans. William Dudley Foulke. Paul the Deacon: History of the Langobards. Philadelphia, 1907. Peire Vidal. Poesie. Ed. Joseph Anglade. Les Poésies de Peire Vidal. 2nd ed. rev. CFMA. Paris, 1923. Ed. D’Arco Silvio Avalle. Peire Vidal: Poesie. 2 vols. Milan, 1960. Prise de Defur.

Ed. Lawton P. G. Peckham and Milan S. La Du. “La Prise de Defur” and “Le Voyage d’Alexandre au paradis terrestre”. Elliott Monographs 35. Princeton, 1035. Proverbes frangais antérieurs au XV siécle. Ed. Joseph Morawski. CFMA. Paris, 1925. Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle.Ed. Ronald N. Walpole. An Anonymous Old French Translation of the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle. Cambridge, Mass., 1979 Raoul de Houdenc. Meraugis de Portlesquez. Ed. Mathias Friedwagner. “Meraugis von Portlesguez,” altfranzosischer Abenteuerroman von Raoul von Houdenc. Halle, 1897. Ed. Henri Michelant. Meraugis de Portlesguez. Paris, 1869. Roman de Renart.Ed. Jean Dufournet and Andrée Méline. 2 vols. Paris, 1985. Ronsasvals. ‘Trans. Robert Barroux. “Ronsasvals, poeme épique provengal.” In Les Textes de la Chanson de Roland. Ed. Raoul Mortier. Vol. 3. Paris, 1941. Scéla Mucce Meic Dathé (The Story of Mac Datho’s Pig)

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SOURCES AND STUDIES 241 Trans. Erling Monsen and A.H. Smith. Snorre Sturlason: Heimskringla or the Lives of the Norse Kings. New York, 1932. Sone de Nausay. Ed. Moritz Goldschmidt. Sone von Nausay. Bibliothek des Litter-

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Virgil. The Aeneid. Trans. C. Day Lewis. The Aeneid. New York, 1952. Ed. T. E. Page. The Aeneid. 2 vols. 1900. Repr. London, 1964. Voeux de lépervier. Ed. G. Wolfram and F. Bonnardot. Les Voeux de Pépervier: Kaiser Heinrichs VI. Rohmfahrt. In Fabrbuch der Gesellschaft fiir Lothringe Geschichte und Altertumskunde 6 (1894): 177-280. Voeux du héron.

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242 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Voyage d’Alexandre au paradis terrestre. See Prise de Defur. Voyage de Charlemagne.

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Index

Adam de la Halle, Roi de Sicile, 212 Cento nouvelle antiche, 82

Alberic of Trois Fontaines, Chroni- Cercamon, 90-92

con, 173 Cerveri de Girona, 82

Alexandre de Paris, 203 Chanson de Guillaume, 144-46, Alliterative Morte Arthure, 204 n. 20 148-50 Annales Marcabenses, 173 Chanson de Roland, 11, 42, 45, 56, 59,

Ballad of King Arthur and King in °° 747 ” 79 80. wT

Cornwall, See King Arthur and : 4 1A - : “ ° —

King Cornwall 309 14%) BAS» DATs AI 909 190 173, 178, 208, 210, 212

Bel Inconnu, 163 5 81, 101 nN. 9, , Charrot de Nimes,. 11,

40, 97 aa -

Ben vuelh que sapchon li pluzor, 85 n. 131, 220

Benedict of Mount Soracte, Chroni- Chevalier Vivien, 145, 147-49 Chrétien de Troyes 1, 13-14, 16, 21,

(0M) T2324) F73 IOI-4, Roman 155-60,de 172, 202 Benoit de Sainte-Maure, ye? . ——-Chevalier de la charette (LanceTroie, 16, 20

Beowulf, 28, 29, 34- lot), 13, 157-58, 162, 163 COWUT) 792 29s 347399 399 449 94 ——Chevalier au lion (Yvain), 1, 15, 72, 92, 144, I51, 166, 168-69,

121, 155, 162

188, 194, 202, 213 ——-Cligés, 154-55, 162, 165, 172 Béroul, Tristan, 11, 103 Conte dun Creal Perceval) uy 8

Vienne, 105 .

Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube, Girart de 162 7 F9%

. ——E rec et Enide, 13, 155, 162 Buik of Alexander, 186 Chronique de Nantes, 22

Calvin, Jean, “Sermon on the Book Continuations of “Perceval,” 20, 156,

of Daniel,” 26 159-63

Campeu Charlymaen, 112, 182-83 Couronnement de Louis, 80, 101 n. 9

Cattle-Raid of Cooley, 5% Covenant Vivien, 148 253

254 THE GAB IN FRENCH LITERATURE Dante, Divine Comedy, 25, 182 Hugh of Fleury, Historia Ecclesiastica,

Descriptio Karolus Magnus, 123-26, 123

133, 140, 173 Homer, Ihad, 61-62

Didot-Perceval, 160

Jacques de Baisieux, Trois Chevaliers

Echtra Rig Tuaithe Luchra ocus Aided et le chainse, 165 n. 47

Fergusa maic Leide, 2 Jacques de Longuyon, Voeux du paon, Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, 57-58, IOI, 185-86, 188, 191, 196, 199-

61,172 200, 202—5, 207, 211-12, 217, 220, 224-26

Fatti de Spagna, 175, 179 Jean Bodel, Chansons des Saisnes, 106,

Fierabras, 60, 101, 124, 172 122, 156 Flamenca, 162-63 Jean Brisebarre, Restor du paon, 193,

Filed Bricrenn, 52 198-99, 203

Froissart, Jean, 214 n. 34, 218 Jean d’Outremeuse, Myreur des

Fuerre de Gadres, 185, 203 Histors, 58, 124, 175, 178 Feu d’Adam, 12, 73-74

Galien le Restoré, 78, 101, 112-13, JFomsvikinga Saga, 2, 36, 42-43, 56,

120, 123, 127, 140, 174-77 67, 70, 79, 144, 188, 198, 202 Garin de Monglane, 127, 175 Jorsalaferd, 48-49, 181-82 Gaucelm Faidit, 92-94 JFoufroi de Poitiers, 57 n. 48, 162,

Gautier de Coincy, 17, 21 170-72

Geipa tattur, 182-84 Jourdain de Blaye, 18 Geiplur, 182

Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Karlamagnus saga, 49, 59, 121, 123,

Regnum Britanniae, 169-70 173, 181, 184 Gesta episcoporum Mettensium, 173 Karl Magnus, 182

Geste de Monglane, 174 Karl Magnus Kronike, 49, 182

Gifts of Men, 58 King Arthur and King Cornwall, 2, Gilles le Muisit, Chronicle, 222 60, 172, 182, 184, 229, 234-35 Gormont et lsembart, 101, 122,

151-52 Lambert le Tort, Roman d’Alexandre,

Gregory the Great, Dialogues, 18 120 Guillaume d’Angleterre, 14, 19, 21,23 Liudprand, 56 Guillaume IX of Aquitane, 23, 75, Lucas de Tuy, Chronicon Mundi, 173 78, 82, 97 Guillaume de Digulleville, Pélerinage |= Marcabru, 85 n. 38, 163

de la vie humaine, 3 ———*D/aiso lau Dieu,” 82-84, 97, Guillaume d’Orange, 144, 146 139 Marie de France, 79

Hélinand, Chronicle, 173 ——Lai du Chevrefeuille, 162 Hildebrandshied, 40-42 Moniage Guillaume, 101 n. 9

INDEX 255 Nota Emulianense, 127 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 28 Sone de Nausat, 166-69, 184

Ogier le Danois, 180 Strassburger Eide, 40 Orlando Innamorato, 174 Snorri Sturleson, 38, 42-45 Orlando Furitoso, 174, ISI ———Heimskringla, 42, 46, 48, 59

Orvar-Odads saga, 36 ———Magnissona saga, 38, 46-48

Partonopeu de Blots, 99 Tacitus, Germania, 32-33 Paul the Deacon, History of the Téin B6 Cuailnge, 38, 52 Langobards, 7, 32-34, 35 53 Togail Bruidne Da Derga, 38 Peire Vidal, Drogoman senher, s’ieu

agues bon destrier, 87, 89 Uc de la Bacalaria, 92-94 Peregrinatio ad loca sancta, 3, 122 Ue de Saint-Circ 2A 94-97

Philippe de Beaumanoir, 21 Uggeri il Danese 175 "8081 Posidonius the Stoic, 53 yore

D8

vise de cfu, 185 Viaggio di Carlo Magna in Ispagna. Prise @ Orange, 101 n. 9 See Fatti de Spagna Prose Lancelot 164, r7? Vie de Saint Alexis, 129

> in Chromicle, 77, 127, 157 Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum

33) 473 historiale, 173

Raimbaut d’Aurenga, Assatz sai Virgil, Aenetd, 61-63 d’amor ben parlar, 85-86, 87 Voeux de Pépervier, 204-5, 211-14, Raoul de Houdenc, Meraugis de Vy; 2 wo 2 , 4 226 ‘5 46

Portlesguez, 163-164, 166, 172 OCU AU DEPON, LS9y L953 2005 2045

Red Book of Hergest, 58 213~14, 217; 220-21, 224727, Rekstefja, 38 230 ; Renaut de Montauban, 12, 13 ue oes o P "on, 186 g Roger of Wendover, Flores Histori- Vase ‘ AN ETHARHE, . 3» OTRO,

arum, 58 I2, 16-17, 20-21, 28-29, 31, 35-

Roman de Renart, 101, 105 39, 42-44, 47-49, 52-55, 57-61,

Roncesvalles, 113, 1'73 65-66, 74-76, 78-80, 85, 97-101, Ronsasvals, 175, 178, 180 103, 105-6, 109, 111-35, 137-45, 147-52, 168, 170-72, 174, 181-

Savaric of Malleo, 92-94 84, 186, 183-90, 194, 196-200, Scéla Mucce Meic Da Tho (Story of 202, 211, 213, 224-25, 227, 2290;

Mac Da Tho’s Pig), 53-54, 70, 230, 232-35 153

Serments de Strasbourg, 142 White Book of Roderick, 230 Siege de Barbastre, 101 n. 9

Simon de Marville, 205 Ystoria Charles, 182

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