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A Semantic Parallelism Based on Old French Gourmon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Raphael Levy
Raphael Levy*
Affiliation:
University of Baltimore
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Extract

This memorable passage (despite its anachronism in assuming that a superstition popular in the time of James I had already been accepted in the time of King Duncan of Scotland) illustrates the ramifications incident to an attempt to study a problem touching upon Romance philology and the history of medicine. The inflammation of the lymphatic glands, technically known as “tuberculous cervical adenitis” but ordinarily called “scrofula,” for a long period received the name of “the King's Evil,” and the treatment of it used to be the special prerogative of royalty. It was thought that the power of the British King to cure scrofula by touching the afflicted person went back to the time of King Lucius of Great Britain. As a matter of fact, King Lucius never existed —except in the imagination of the English theologian William Tooker in the sixteenth century—and the thaumaturgical power of the King began with Henry II (between 1154 and 1189). In France this royal prerogative was supposed to go back to the Merovingian King Clovis, but the earliest document substantiating the claim is the De Gallorum Imperio et Philosophia of Étienne Forcatel, published at Paris in 1579. The tradition of a French King's curing scrofula started with Philip I (between 1060 and 1108), and was actually revived at the coronation of Charles X at Reims in 1825. Attention is called to a painting of the sixteenth century, in the Pinacoteca of Turin, which shows a King of France about to touch a scrofulous crowd. At the right stands a patient on whose stomach one can discern clearly the head of a pig.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , December 1934 , pp. 1019 - 1024
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1934

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References

1 For all the information given so far, including a reproduction of the Turin painting, the reader is referred to the scholarly monograph by M. Bloch, Les Rois thaumaturges (Strassburg, 1914).

2 E. Law Hussey, Archaeological Journal, x (1853), 211.

3 Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, clvi (1907), 139.

4 Philadelphia, 1846.

5 F. H. Garrison, An Introduction to the History of Medicine (Philadelphia, 1929), p. 104.

6 G. Sarton, Introd. to the Hist. of Science: From Rabbi Ben Ezra to Roger Bacon, ii (Baltimore, 1931), 237.

7 G. W. Corner, Anatomical Texts of the Earlier Middle Ages (Washington, 1927), p. 48.

8 T. W. M. Cameron, The Veterinary Journal, lxxxi (1925), 490.

9 E. ben Yehuda, Thesaurus Totius Hebraitatis (Berlin, 1911), p. 1485. An Old French receipt for scrofula, equally fantastic, is published by A. Salmon, Etudes romanes dédiées à Gaston Paris (Paris, 1891), p. 257, paragraph 30; cf. Paul Meyer, Romania, xxxvii (1908), 363, paragraph 12.

10 M. Steinschneider, Suppl. zur Ztschr. Math. Physik, xxv (1880), §7, No. 2 = Gesammelte Schriften, i (Berlin, 1925), 424.

11 Cf. “The Astrological Works of Abraham ibn Ezra,” Johns Hopkins Studies Rom. Lit. Lang., viii. An edition of this treatise has been prepared by F. Cantera and R. Levy.

12 The classic form serves as the etymon for English scrofula, Italian scrofole, French scrofules, Old Provençal escroula, but ∗scrōfěllae must be assumed in Vulgar Latin for French écrouelles (from which is derived Scotch cruels) and for skrufelle used by the natives of Teramo. H. R. Luard, St. Aedward le Rei 2613, reads escrovele, and Du Cange records scroellae, scruellae; cf. H. Schuchardt, Ztschr. rom. Phil., xxxi (1907), 659, and A. Graur, Romania, liv (1928), p. 507.

13 “A Systematic Tabulation of Indo-European Animal Names,” Lang. Diss., viii, 7.

14 For general lists of the numerous names for the porcine species, see also E. Rolland, Faune populaire de la France, v (Paris, 1882), p. 213; L. Sainéan, Ztschr. rom. Phil., Beiheft x (1907), 77 et seq.; E. Tappolet, Archiv Studium n. Spr., lxvii (1913), 120. I hesitate to recommend the German dissertation of M. M. Stangier, Die Bezeichnung des Schweines im Galloromanischen (Bonn, 1929). Typical of emendations needed in it are the following: (p. 12) cf. Roland 1751, 2591, 3223; (p. 24) cf. A. Dauzat, Essais de géographie linguistique, Noms d'animaux (Paris, 1921), p. 29; (p. 41) Ménage did not refer to “Le père Sable” but to “Le père P. Labbe, Les Étymologies de plusieurs mots français (Paris, 1661),” while goret as a poetic rime is explained correctly in the edition of the Jardin de Plaisance, ii (Paris, 1925), 55–59; (p. 43) “Augues” is given for Hugues Lapaire, Le Patois Berrichon; (p. 50) one may now consult Romania, lvi (1930), p. 161 for cloporte, and PMLA, xlvi (1931), p. 318 for gous.

15 R. Crawfurd, The King's Evil (Oxford, 1911), p. 14, arrives at the same conclusion.

16 E. Nicaise, La Grande Chirurgie de Guy de Chauliac (Paris, 1890), p. 721. Incidentally, this theory is substantiated in animal husbandry today.

17 P. Gallois, Nouveau Traité de médecine et de thérapeutique, publié par P. Brouardel et A. Gilbert, iv (Paris, 1906), 138.

18 O. Bloch, Dict. étym. langue fran., i (Paris, 1932), s.v. écrouelles.

19 Gourmon is cited as a hapax legomenon by Godefroy; his inaccurate definition of “goitre” has already been corrected by A. Thomas, Romania, xxxviii (1909), p. 585.

20 Lists of such forms have already been compiled by F. Fertiault, Dict. du langage populaire verduno-chalonnais (Paris, 1896), s. v. gouri; W. O. Streng, Mémoires Soc. néophilologique Helsingfors, vi (1917), p. 101; E. Gamillscheg, Etym. Wtb. frz. Sprache (Heidelberg, 1928), s. v. goret.

21 Edition J. A. Buchon, vol. v (Paris, 1828), p. 34. A new edition is being prepared by G. Doutrepont and O. Jodogne. Gorre is lacking in N. Dupire's Jean Molinet: La Vie-Les Oeuvres (Paris, 1932), but it was studied by P. Champion, Histoire poétique du quinzième siècle, ii (Paris, 1923), p. 372. It was traced back to 1496 by L. Sainéan, La Langue de Rabelais, i (Paris, 1922), p. 47. As for the word syphilis itself, it was unknown until 1530 when Fracastoro used it as the name of an American shepherd afflicted with the disease. His poem is an echo of Ovid's Metamorphoses, vi, 231.

22 Cf. “Recherches lexicographiques sur d'anciens textes français,” Johns Hopkins Studies Rom. Lit. Lang., Extra Vol. v (1932), No. 153 and 369.

23 It is defined “goiter” by the editors G. Servois and G. Huet (Paris, 1893) and by Godefroy, Complément; Haust, ibid., states that it means either “goiter” or “scrofula,” just as Thomas, ibid., would change Godefroy's translation of the adjective gormé from “goitrous” to “scrofulous.” A. Millet, Études lexicographiques sur … Godefroy (Paris, 1888), p. 47, has also changed Godefroy's definition for estrume to “scrofule.”

24 On the other hand, goitre and coche are derivatives of goitron and cochon.

26 Archivum Romanicum, ix (1925), 421. Old French gorelier, not related to gourmon, is listed by Godefroy, iv, p. 303; it was overlooked by M. Bronckart, Étude philologique sur … Jean de Haynin (Bruxelles, 1933), p. 172.