Marie de France's Fables

[marysharpwitted]

Fables
Marie de France

MaryAnn Sharples
LIBR 280-12 History of Books and Libraries
San Jose State University
21 March 2010

Introduction

The following study explores a manuscript of Marie de France's Fables. Marie de France translated the fables contained therein from English into French in the twelfth century. According to Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner (pg. 1), there have been 25 known copies of the Fables which have been preserved over the years, dating from between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. This particular manuscript was inked and illuminated in the fifteenth century; the illuminator, however, cannot be identified. It has been made available by the Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland and currently resides in collection at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, France.

Historical Context

It is believed that Marie de France actively wrote during the latter half of the twelfth century, coinciding with the height of England's Angevin Empire. During this time England held vast land boundaries. The credit could be laid at the feet of the fortuitous marriage between Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor, the ex-wife of France's Louis VII (1137-1180), brought into her marriage the extensive duchies of Aquitaine and Poitou. When Plantagenet ascended to the English throne in 1154, as Henry II (1154-1189), their combined possessions united under England's banner the western half of France. Historians have coined this region the "Angevin Empire"; such a term did not exist in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This was a period of transition: urban centers were growing, the population sprawling, places of learning were shifting, literature and the arts began to flourish. Many historians contribute the latter to the welcoming atmosphere found within the court of Henry II and Eleanor. Eleanor was highly educated for a noble woman in twelfth century and her intelligence, no doubt, attracted writers, poets, and other artists to her court.

Literature in twelfth century England was overwhelming in French and Latin. In fact, the official languages of state were French and Latin and the first Plantagenet king who was fluent in English was John I (1199-1216; Mortimer, 1994). Three twelfth century works have been attributed to Marie: the Lais, the Fables, and L'Espurgatoire Saint Patrice, each composed in French. Marie has been has been called the first French woman poet. Marie wrote narratives, centering "on romantic and magical themes" (Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature). Her Lais are commonly categorized as courtly romances in the Arthurian sense.

Very little is concretely known about Marie. Scholars have inferred that she was natively French, but lived in England. This is due to the following passage included in her first lays and at the end of Fables and L'Espurgatoire Saint Patrice (Ferrante and Hanning, pg 6):

Me numerai pur remembrance Marie ai nun, si sui de France. Put cel estre que clerc plusur Prendreient sure us mun labor, Ne voil que sur li le die.

I shall name myself so that it will be remembered; Marie is my name, I am of France. It may be that many clerks Will take my labor on themselves. I don't want any of them to claim it.

If Marie had still lived in France, it would have been redundant to indicate that she was from France. There were several prominent, well-known, and documented French women named Marie living in England during this time period. Scholars have debated quite extensively regarding Marie's identity. One theory is that she was the abbess of Shaftesbury. The abbess was born illegitimately to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, Henry II's father. If Marie were the abbess, she would have been Henry's half-sister. Some scholars believe that her presence in Henry's court supports this theory. Other theories have identified her as the abbess of Reading or Marie du Meulan, Count Waleran of Beaumont's daughter. The former theory has gained some acceptance over the years. Marie's true identity can only be conjectured and scholars are certain of only one thing: the world will most likely never know Marie's true identity. It is also commonly agreed that Marie was a very well-educated woman. In addition to being literate in French, she was fluent in English and French. This is apparent by her translations of the Fables and L'Espurgatoire Saint Patrice, which were originally in English and Latin, respectively.

The Fables contain 102 fables in the collection. They "represent the ancient Aesopian tradition which was…quite popular in the Middle Ages" (Martin, pg 1). Marie claimed that she translated the Fables from an English version by King Alfred, who had translated them from Latin.

Collection

This particular manuscript was inked and illuminated in the fifteenth century. It has been traced in ownership to A. Rosset, a Lyons collector. It appeared at an exposition organized by the Library of Lyon in 1920. On 17 June 1960 it was acquired by Martin Bodmer. It is currently in collection at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, in Paris, France. The Virtual Manuscript of Switzerland created the digital copy and hosts it on its Web site. The content of this particular manuscript contains 101 of the 102 fables, including the prologue and the epilogue. The erotic passages, however, contained in Marie's original have been erased from this particular manuscript. There is a slight colophon presented in the front of the manuscript. It says simply:

XVe Siecle Manuscrit de l'Ysopet de Marie de France, femme poete du XIIIe Siecle

15th century Manuscript of Aesop by Marie de France, woman poet of the 13th century

Binding and Collation

The Fables manuscript measures 290 mm by 200 mm and contains 31 folios. The manuscript has definitely been rebound, but the date of the last binding is not known. The existing binding is made out of wooden boards covered with dark red velvet that was described as "modern" in the manuscript's description. The binding does not have the title of the work embossed or printed on either the front or the spine. There is flyleaf in the front, with the other half of that flyleaf used as a pastedown. The other half of the last folio (31) is used as a pastedown. The 31 recto contains the last text of manuscript, while 31 verso is blank. The text of the manuscript was written on parchment. The ink in the front half of the manuscript is comparatively light when compared to the last several folios, but considering the age of the manuscript, it is fairly good condition. The manuscript does not contain ruling. The manuscript's text is divided into columns; there are between 41 and 48 lines per column.

Script, Decoration, and Illumination

This manuscript contains only the text for Marie's Fables. The Fables were composed in French. The manuscript was written in round-hand slanted cursive and believed to be created by a single scribe. The incipit for this version of the Fables appears to be one word: "Ceulx" before the text flows into its normal justification. The "C" of the word is part of an illustration of a scribe; possibly a self-portrait of the same scribe responsible for the creation of the manuscript. Or it could simply just be a generic drawing of a scribe. The explicit received no special or decorative attention.

The incipit, in fact, reflects the height of the complex decoration in this manuscript. There are, however, 104 simple watercolor or pen and ink illustrations of the fables throughout the manuscript. The illustrations depict both human and animal characters found in the fables. The dimensions of the drawings are estimated to be 45 mm by 65 mm.

The illuminator consistently used rubrication to indicate the transition from one fable to another fable. An additional indicator that the text transitions to another fable is the presence of a new illustration. Though, the fable's illustration did not always precede the beginning of story; often the illustration was placed at the middle or the conclusion of the tale.

Summary

According to Martin (pg. 1) from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, Marie was most commonly known for the Fables. It wasn't until the nineteenth century when twelfth century literature was popularly heralded for Arthurian romances of courtly love and chivalric adventures that the attention shifted from Marie's Fables to her Lais. The lyrical and poetic style of the Lais better appealed to modern readers. Yet, the manuscripts of Marie's Fables have out survived the Lais. Bruckner (pg.1) indicated that there are 25 known preserved manuscripts of the Fables, compared to five of the Lais. This may represent that the Fables were more prized during the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries than the Lais and consequently better maintained than copies of the Lais, but this stark reality doesn't minimize Marie's contribution to the literature. She is recognized as the first French woman poet, her identity continues to mystify us, and most importantly, her works, both the Lais and the Fables, continue to leave us spellbound.

References

Abrams, M.H. (Ed.). (2000). "Marie de France". The Norton Anthonolgy of English Literature, Seventh Edition, Volume I. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Barber, M.C. (1997). "Angevins and Capetians in the Late Twelfth Century". Atlas of Medieval Europe. New York, NY: Routledge.

Borst, A. (1991). "Chapter 11: Women and Art in the Middle Ages". Medieval Worlds: barbarians, heretics, artists. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Burgess, G.S. and Busby, K. (1999). "Introduction". The Lais of Marie de France. London, UK: Penguin Books Ltd.

Bruckner, M.T. (1999). "Marie de France". Literature of the French and Occitan Middle Ages: Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries. Detroit, MI: Gale Group. Accessed online at http://go.galegroup.com.

Ferrante, J. and Hanning, R. (1978). "Introduction". The Lais of Marie de France. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Geary, P., Kishlansky, M., and O'Brien, P. (2003). "Chapter 9: The High Middle Ages". Civilization in the West. New York, NY: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.

Jordan, W.C. (2003). "Cultural Innovation of the Twelfth Century: Vernacular Literature and Architecture". Europe in the High Middle Ages. New York, NY: Penguin Books Ltd.

Marie de France. Fables (images). Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland. Accessed on March 21, 2010 from http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/cb/0113/V3/small.

"Marie de France". (1995). Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster. Accessed online at http://go.galegroup.com.

Martin, M.L. (1984). "Introduction". The Fables of Marie de France. Birmingham, AL: Summa Publications. Accessed online at http://go.galegroup.com.

Mortimer, R. (1994). Angevin England: 1154-1258. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.