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Dice Games and Other Games in Le Jeu de saint Nicolas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Carolyn L. Dinshaw
Carolyn L. Dinshaw*
Affiliation:
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
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Abstract

Scholars have attempted to determine the precise details of the dice games played in the tavern in Le Jeu de saint Nicolas but have not connected these particular games to the play's larger structural and thematic design. Jean Bodel's alterations of the Iconia Sancti Nicolai legend are governed by the concept of game as an activity defined and delimited by rules, set off from events of the “real world,” yet intently pursued. His modifications are appropriate to a dramatic representation, for drama itself in the Middle Ages was considered “play,” a game. The idea of game was deeply rooted in the medieval imagination: all human history was seen as a contest between God and Satan that is controlled and determined by God. Bodel contrasts the rule-governed realm of the pagans with the Christian realm of belief and celebrates God's supreme control of the game of history.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 95 , Issue 5 , October 1980 , pp. 802 - 811
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1980

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References

Notes

1 See, e.g., C. A. Knudson, “Hasard et les autres jeux de dés dans le Jeu de saint Nicolas,” Romania, 63 (1937), 248–53; W. Noomen, “Encore une fois la partie de ‘Hasard’ dans le Jeu de saint Nicolas,” Neophilologus, 43 (1959), 109–13; F. Lecoy on Noomen in Romania, 81 (1960), 139–41; A. Henry, “La Partie de hasard dans le Jeu de saint Nicolas,” Romania, 81(1960), 241–43.

2 E.g., H. S. Robertson, “Structure and Comedy in Le Jeu de saint Nicolas,” Studies in Philology, 64 (1967), 551–63; K. Heitmann, “Zur Frage der inneren Einheit von Jehan Bodels Jeu de Saint Nicolas,” Romanische Forschungen, 75 (1963), 289–315; A. Adler, “Le Jeu de saint Nicolas, édifiant, mais dans quel sens?” Romania, 81 (1960), 112–20.

3 Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens (1949; rpt. Boston: Beacon, 1955), p. 13; V. A. Kolve, The Play Called Corpus Christi (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1966), pp. 19–20. Throughout this paper, my debt to Kolve's work is large and obvious.

4 Patrick R. Vincent, The Jeu de saint Nicolas of Jean Bodel of Arras: A Literary Analysis, Johns Hopkins Studies in Romance Literatures and Languages, 49 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1954), p. 33.

5 The text of the Jeu quoted in this paper is that of Albert Henry, Le Jeu de saint Nicolas de Jehan Bodel, 2nd éd., Université Libre de Bruxelles, Travaux de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, 21 (Brussels: Presses Universitaires de Bruxelles, 1965). Line references are to this text. The English translations are from Richard Axton and John Stevens, Medieval French Plays (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1971).

6 Non-cycle Plays and Fragments, ed. Norman Davis, Early English Text Society, supp. ser. 1 (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1970), p. 115, 11. 1–8. The modern English translations of the Middle English texts, except where otherwise noted, are mine.

7 Ludus Coventriae; or, The Plaie Called Corpus Christi, ed. K. S. Block, Early English Text Society, extra ser. 120 (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1922), p.16, 11. 518–21.

8 Huizinga specifies that an attitude of equality between antagonists is a defining characteristic of warfare that serves a ludic function. He goes on to deny that battles fought by Christians against heathens have a play quality, because the infidels were “not recognized as human beings and thus deprived of human rights” (pp. 89–90). As a matter of fact, in the Middle Ages the Saracens were considered to be human; as Stephen G. Nichols, Jr., pointed out to me, they were thought to represent that half of humanity which rejected God and became the race of Cain. John Scotus Eriugena, in Bk. v, Sec. 38, of his Periphyseon or De Divisione Naturae (J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina [Paris, 1844–64], Vol. 122, col. 1011), explicates the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins in terms of the whole human race, those who turned toward God and those who turned away. Nevertheless, Huizinga's point can be usefully applied to the Jeu—ironically, in inverted form: the infidels of the play view the attacking Christians as faithless barbarians (Auberon describes them to the King: “Nos dieus n'onneurent ne proient” ‘Our gods they neither invoke nor honour’ [i. 120]), whom they slaughter with abandon.

9 The modern French is from Henry's edition; the modern German is from K. H. Schroeder, W. Nitsch, and M. Wenzel, eds., Das Spiel vom heiligen Nikolaus,Klassische Texte des Romanischen Mittelalters, 14 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1975).

10 York Plays, ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith (Oxford:Clarendon, 1885), p. 261, 1. 192.

11 Rosemary Woolf, “The Theme of Christ the Lover-Knight in Medieval English Literature,” Review of English Studies, 13 (1962), 1–16.

12 The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle, ed. From BM Cotton MS Cleopatra C. vi by E. J. Dobson, Early English Text Society, OS 267 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1972), p. 286. I have expanded the manuscript abbreviations Dobson transcribes in his edition. The modern English translation is from James Morton's edition (London: Camden Society, 1853), p. 391.

13 Augustine, Sermon CCLXIII, “De Ascensione Domini,” in Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina, Vol. 38, col. 1210. The English translation appears in Meyer Schapiro, “‘Muscipula Diaboli,’ the Symbolism of the Mérode Altarpiece,” Art Bulletin, 27 (1945), 182.