¹ Abrahams, Phyllis, Les Oeuvres poétiques de Baudri de Bourgueil (1046–1130) (Paris 1926), a faulty text with useful notes, reviewed by Lehmann, Paul, Literaturblatt für germanische und romanische Philologie 49 (1928) 19–22; by Strecker, Karl, Studi Medievali ns 1 (1928) 532–39; and by Schumann, Otto, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 49 (1929) 579–95. A detailed list of corrections is included in the thesis of Karlheinz Hilbert, Studien zu den Carmina des Baudri von Bourgueil (diss. Heidelberg 1967) 1–56. Now available is that author's edition, Baldricus Burgulianus Carmina (Heidelberg 1979), a good text unfortunately without notes, reviewed recently by Oeberg, Jan, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 16 (1981) 397–401. Since both editions are necessary for any student of the poems, I refer to both throughout this paper, giving in Arabic numerals the poem's number in Hilbert, in Roman numerals its number in Abrahams. Citations are taken unaltered from Hilbert unless otherwise noted, with the exception that I have replaced his raised period (to indicate a half-stop) with a semi-colon. All translations are my own in the absence of any contrary indication.Google Scholar

² Basic treatment of the non-religious poetry of Baudri can be found in Manitius, Max, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters III (Munich 1931) 885–96, where earlier literature is cited; Brinkmann, Hennig, Entstehungsgeschichte des Minnesangs (Halle 1925) 13–61; Schumann, Otto, ‘Baudri von Bourgueil als Dichter,’ in Studien zur lateinischen Dichtung des Mittelalters: Ehrengabe für Karl Strecker (Dresden 1931) 158–70, repr. in Mittellateinische Dichtung, ed. Langosch, Karl (Darmstadt 1969) 330–42; Raby, F. J. E., A History of Secular Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages (2nd. ed.; Oxford 1957) I 337–48; and in Bezzola, Reto, Les Origines et la formation de la littérature courtoise en Occident (600–1200) (Paris 1960) II.2, 371–82. A succinct overview has recently been made by Tilliette, Jean-Yves, ‘Culture classique et humanisme monastique: Les poèmes de Baudri de Bourgueil,’ in La Littérature angevine médiévale: Actes du Collogue du samedi 22 mars 1980 (Angers 1981) 77–88. I have not seen the latter's thesis which he cites in that article, Rhétorique et poétique chez les poètes latins médiévaux: recherches sur Baudri de Bourgueil (Thèse de 3ème cycle dactylographiés, Université de Paris IV, 1981). Studies of individual poems are indicated in subsequent notes.Google Scholar

³ Baudri had finished the bulk of the poetry by the time he left Bourgueil in 1107, as already Pasquier (232) noticed. The earliest poems by William, VII, Count of Poitiers, can be dated to 1105–1106; see the arguments in my The Poetry of William VII, Count of Poitiers, IX Duke of Aquitaine (New York 1982) L–LI.Google Scholar

⁴ The main evidence for the ‘Ovidian thesis’ was assembled by Scheludko, Dimitri, ‘Ovid und die Troubadours,’ Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 54 (1934) 128–74. Käte Axhausen reviewed the theory in detail in her balanced study Die Theorien über den Ursprung der provenzalischen Lyrik (Düsseldorf 1937) 39–49; while Roger Boase ignores it altogether in The Origin and Meaning of Courtly Love: A Critical Study of European Scholarship (Manchester 1977). Although too dogmatically and sketchily argued, Brinkmann's important identification of the Loire poets as the necessary intermediaries between Ovid and the troubadours has not received the attention it deserves. It was flatly denied by Bezzola, , II.2, 381; and Nelli, René, L'Érotique des troubadours (Paris 1974) I.35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ Unless otherwise indicated, the information about Baudri's life is taken from the study by Pasquier, Henri, Un Poète latin du XI^ème siècle: Baudri, Abbé de Bourgueil, Archevêque de Dol, 1046–1130 (Paris 1878). Manitius, , Geschichte 883–84, adds other useful primary and secondary material. Fundamental to any detailed historical work on Baudri's life is the volume of notes and copies of documents collected by Andre Salmon in the middle of the last century. It exists today as manuscript 1338 of the Bibliotheque municipale of Tours; see Pasquier 9–12. In stating that Baudri had two nephews, I consider the nephew mentioned in the poems and in the Visitatio, apparently named Iulus (126/CLXXXVIII.105), as separate from the Arnaldus clericus archiepiscopi Baldrici nepos found by Abrahams, (notes to 250/XXIX) in a charter from the cathedral chapter at Tours dated 1107–30.Google Scholar

⁶ For the nature of the trivium which Baudri might have studied see Maître, Léon, Les Écoles épiscopales et monastiques en Occident avant les Universités (Paris 1924); Paré, G., Brunet, A., and Tremblay, P., La Renaissance du XII ^ème siècle: Les écoles et l'enseignement (Paris 1933). Although Pasquier and others had declared Baudri a student of the ‘école angevine,’ see the refutations on the part of Abrahams xxv ff.; and Bulst, Walter, Studien zu Marbods Carmina varia und Liber decem capitulorum (Göttingen 1939) 229–34. The evidence gathered by Abrahams, (xxix) that Marbod influenced Baudri as poet is vehemently attacked by Bulst (Studien 229–30). In addition to Marbod, other Angevin teachers are addressed by Baudri, : an unknown Frodo, who had studied littera multa before going to England (28–30/XC–XCII), and Rainaldus clericus, identified by Abrahams (390) as a student of Fulbert of Chartres who preceded Marbod at Angers, dying sometime after 1077. Pasquier suggested (41) that Baudri had studied with Beranger of Tours, cautiously supported by Abrahams (xi). Although laudatory, Baudri's epitaph for Beranger (27/LXXXIX) is relatively short and perfunctory, giving no indication of any special relationship between the two.Google Scholar

⁷ Baudri praises the library at Bourgueil in his attempt to persuade a cleric to become a monk: ‘The Classical texts (littera) you seek which have been dispersed throughout the world fill the bookshelves of my monastery and desire you’ (77/CXXXIX. 171–72). I have translated the word littera here with ‘Classical texts’ instead of a more general ‘writings’ because of a later line in the poem which refers to ‘the pagan page … which you now serve’ (Pagina gentilis … cui modo seruis 183); Baudri usually uses the word to mean something like ‘humanistic education,’ often qualifying it with diues or multa, that which enables one to be facetus and iocundus in verse and conversation. Included in the library at Bourgueil, or in Baudri's own possession, was a copy of Ovid's works (Ovidius) which Baudri once lent out against his will (111/CLXXIII). For other works, classical as well as medieval, to which Baudri may have had access, see the lists of Abrahams xxvii–xxix, which should be used with caution. A good discussion of the close relationship between the composition of poetry and the teaching of grammar can be found in Stotz, Peter, ‘Dichten als Schulfach — Aspekte mittelalterlicher Schuldichtung,’ Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 16 (1981) 1–16.Google Scholar

⁸ PL 166.1173: ‘I went down to the apple orchard to see the Punic apples [pomegranates]. I saw the great cedar of Lebanon, Cluny, and I smiled; I examined the odorous cypress, Marmoutier, and I exulted; I gazed in awe at the fertile paradise which nourished me for a long time among its pomegranates, Bourgueil, and I rejoiced; all the more since I stayed as custodian and gardener of that garden for about thirty years.’ I have emended the edited text because of the awkward inspiciebam odorem and the prominent parallelism with videbam cedrum altam. Google Scholar

⁹ See Gallia Christiana (Paris 1875) XIV 655–56; and Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (Paris 1938) X 229–33.Google Scholar

¹⁰ In much of the earlier literature, the date given for Baudri's assumption of the abbacy is 1077, based upon his statement (see note 8) that he had been hortulanus et custos at Bourgueil for ferme sex lustris, i.e. nearly six ‘lustres’ or thirty years. Pasquier (274) demonstrated that Baudri had been prior before becoming abbot and, to account for documents which show Baudri's predecessor, Raymond, still in office in the 1080s, concluded that Baudri had become prior around 1079 and abbot in 1087. Those dates have been refuted recently by Guillot, Olivier, Le Comte d'Anjou et son entourage au XI ^ème siècle (Paris 1972) II 212. Rejecting the authenticity of the key documents upon which Pasquier based his arguments, Guillot concludes that Baudri was elected as abbot between January 1078 and 1082; since Baudri says he was in power nearly thirty years and since he became archbishop of Dol in May of 1107, a date of 1078 would appear to be about right.Google Scholar

¹¹ See 1/XXXVI; 85/CXLVII; and 99/CLXI. The dream poem 2/XXXVII, although obscured in its details by allegory, portrays the poet's victory over the garrulitas and minae of his critics (lines 124–27); a totally different — and to my mind totally unfounded — interpretation of the poem is given by Forstner, K., ‘Das Traumgedicht Baudris von Bourgueil,’ Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 6 (1972) 45–57. Although the genre (somnium) was well known, the combination of literary and personal content is to my knowledge unparalleled in contemporary writing (see also Abrahams 22).Google Scholar

¹² Ivo's letters were published in PL 162.82–87 nos. 66 and 67; they have been re-edited by Leclercq, Jean, Yves de Chartres: Correspondance (Paris 1949) 282–97 nos. 65 and 66. In the first letter, Ivo complains to the papal legate Hugh of Die about the succession of the lecherous archdeacon John to the episcopacy of Orleans: ‘Praeterea sciat solertia vestra quia, cum abbas Burguliensis, ore patulo, manibus apertis, cum multa securitate ad curiam in Natale venisset ad accipiendum episcopatum, sicut ei illa dicta regina promiserat, quia animadversi sunt plures et pleniores sacculi nummorum latere in apothecis amicorum istius quam apud abbatem, ille est admissus, iste est exclusus. Et cum abbas quereretur apud regem quare sic eum delusisset, respondit: “Sustinete interim donec de isto faciam proficuum meum, postea quaerite ut iste deponatur, et tunc faciam voluntatem vestram”’ (Leclercq 288). The report is perhaps not to be taken at face value; see Pasquier 203. Baudri's relationship to Robert of Arbrissel is described by von Walter, Johannes, Die ersten Wanderprediger Frankreichs, I: Robert von Arbrissel (Leipzig 1903) 13ff.Google Scholar

¹³ PL 166.1173: ‘I emigrated to Brittany, and chiefly because illicit shrubs were growing up in my rose garden (and many of them as usual) from which I fled, since I could neither pluck them out nor hide them. I was afraid that I might fail under the burden of the task, and already the restless Poitevin storm had begun to blow foully.’ The circumstances of Baudri's election have been described by Pasquier 294ff. Ute-Renate Blumenthal studies the Council of Troyes in her The Early Councils of Pope Paschal II, 1100–1110 (Toronto 1978), where she deals with this issue (81 and n.). The canons of Dol had elected Vulgrin, the chancellor of Chartres, as their archbishop at the Council; but he refused and his bishop, Ivo, supported him (PL 162 letters 178 and 180).Google Scholar

¹⁴ A careful discussion of the data regarding the famous affair of William VII, Count of Poitiers, IX Duke of Aquitaine with Maubergeonne, Vicountess of Châtellerault, has been made by Villard, François, ‘Guillaume IX d'Aquitaine et le concile de Reims de 1119,’ Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale 16 (1973) 295–302, where earlier literature is cited. That over half the patrimony of the abbey was located in Poitou is made clear by the list in the confirmation of Paschal II of 1105 published by Ramackers, Johannes, Papsturkunden in Frankreich, neue Folge, Band 5 (Göttingen 1956) 92–94. The first troubadour was Baudri's secular overlord for that property, and the latter is attested at least once in his presence; see Richard, Alfred, Histoire des comtes de Poitou (Paris 1903) 447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁵ The Ecclesiastic History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. Chibnall, M. (Oxford 1975) V 188–89: ‘Indomitis enim Britonibus praeerat; quorum peruersitatem tolerare non poterat.’ Many of Baudri's contemporaries, including Abelard, Robert of Arbrissel, and Marbod, held similar views about the Bretons: see Walter 102, and Bulst 200–201. Baudri himself commented in the Itinerarium that he found a wasteland in Britanny and that, although he labored to establish productive plantings, his work was in vain (PL 166.1173). The complex history of Dol in this period is well summarized in the Dictionnaire d'histoire XIV 568–71: originally an archdeaconry with seven deaconries and then a bishopric, Dol attempted to separate from Tours in the mid-ninth century as an independent archbishopric with six suffragans. Around 1075, Gregory VII gave its bishop the pallium, causing a lengthy contest which ended only in 1199 when Innocent III reduced Dol again to a suffragan of Tours.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁶ No trip to Rome before 1108 is mentioned by Pasquier. In poem 95/CLVII, written before 1096 to the Archbishop of Pisa requesting an audience with the Pope, Baudri speaks of himself as a ‘stranger’ (peregrinus ego, 6), implying that he is already in Italy.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Baudri's suspension by the papal legate Gerard of Angoulême is reported in a collection of material concerning the dispute between Dol and Tours published by Martène, E., Thesaurus novus anecdotorum (Paris 1717) III 919; when a new bishop came to Dol to be consecrated, Baudri ‘non poterat eum consecrare, quia suspensus erat a quodam legato Romanae Ecclesiae propter praebendam quam nolebat restituere cuidam canonico Dolensi.’ See also Gallia Christiana (Paris 1876) XIV 1001.Google Scholar

¹⁸ The suffragan of Alet withdrew in 1120, that of Leon about 1130 (Dictionnaire d'histoire XIV 569–70). Baudri's burial place is reported by Orderic Vitalis, loc. cit., who knew Baudri well in his final years and who himself was a monk at Evreux; his account is confirmed by an epitaph for Baudri in the church of Saint-Samson-sur-Rille (Pasquier 287 n. 5). In 1700 Baudri's tomb was found before the altar and received a new epitaph when the nave was subsequently repaved; see Le Roux de Lincy, Antoine, Essai historique et littéraire sur l'abbaye de Fécamp (Rouen 1840) 284–85.Google Scholar

¹⁹ A description and analysis of the manuscript has been provided by Hilbert in his dissertation, 7–25. The suspicion that the manuscript is an authorized copy has recently been given a substantive basis by Tilliette, Jean-Yves, ‘Note sur le manuscrit des poèmes de Baudri de Bourgueil,’ Scriptorium 37 (1983) 241–45: 245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁰ The correct list can be found in Abrahams xxiii–xxiv, although the publication data need much revision and augmentation.Google Scholar

²¹ Letter-poem 201/CCXXXIX was written by the nun Constance in response to 200/CCXXXVIII; both the tone and the message diverge sufficiently from Baudri's text to establish that the text is not fictive. Letter-poem 204/CCXLII was composed by a certain Odo and sent to Baudri, as the rubric states (versus Odonis ad abbatem). Abrahams had questioned Baudri's authorship of the titulus 125/CLXXXVII, because it appears anonymously in four later manuscripts (Abrahams 182 n.; see Walther, Hans, Initia, carminum, ac versuum Medii Aevi posterioris Latinorum (2nd ed.; Göttingen 1969) 599 no. 11685. The couplet forms the first two lines of a poem of eight lines inserted into the second book (written after 1107) of the De visitatione infirmorum (PL 40.1154). Since the De visitatione was extremely popular in the thirteenth century, there is no reason to assume from the appearance of four anonymous sources of that century that Baudri did not write the original poem of two lines, which he then expanded into a longer poem when revising the consolation letter. Schumann's objections (331 n.) to the hymns in the manuscript on the basis of their divergence in content are without foundation.Google Scholar

²² The closest comparison is perhaps with the collection of poems written by Alcuin, , where one finds friendship letter-poems (explicitly Christian), riddles, epitaphs, and tituli, in addition to a variety of religious poems. The texts are collected in Monumenta Germaniae Historical Poetae Latini (Berlin 1881) I 236ff.; see the general study by Wallach, Luitpold, Alcuin and Charlemagne: Studies in Carolingian History and Literature (Ithaca, New York 1959), and the article by Schaller, Dieter, ‘Vortrags- und Zirkulardichtung am Hof Karls des Grossen,’ Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 6 (1970) 14–36.Google Scholar

²³ The ancestry of the titulus has been well examined by Bernt, Günter, Das lateinische Epigramm im Uebergang von der Spätantike zum frühen Mittelalter (Munich 1968). The basic work on the rotuli was carried out by Delisle, Léopold, ‘Les Monuments paléographiques concernant l'usage de prier pour les morts,’ Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes 3 (1846) 361–411; and in his Rouleaux des morts du XI ^ème au X V ^ème siècle (Paris 1866). Only a few rotuli still exist, although many were copied. One of the most interesting of the period was the rotulus put together upon the death of the daughter of William the Conqueror, Mathilde, abbess of La Trinité in Caen († 1113), which was over twenty meters in length. It offers unique testimony about the conflicting images of woman in the early twelfth century, since many of the contributors to the document were women themselves.Google Scholar

²⁴ Even the more elaborate epitaphs cannot claim esthetic immortality, as the following example written in 1094 or 1095 upon the death of Godfrey of Reims shows (35/XCVII): ‘A literate treasure of great philosophy And a great muse perished, when Godfrey died. This ornament of the clergy, fit to be a second sun for the world, Would have sufficed the world if he had lived long. But unrestrained death lowered his restraints upon him And, envious, removed that great radiance from the skies. Reims has the body, may heaven be the home of his soul. Farewell, oh urn, so enriched by rich bones’ (Iocundus magne thesaurus Philosophie / Magnaque Musa perit, cum Godefrede obit. / Iste decus cleri, sol alter idoneus orbi, / Orbi sufficeret, uiueret ipse diu. / Sed mors effrenis super hunc sua frena grauauit / Et iubar a superis inuida grande tulit. / Remis habet corpus; anime sit mansio celum. / Diuitibus diues ossibus, urna, uale). The metaphoric thought occupying the center (3–6) of the epitaph — Godfrey was to the clergy as the sun to the world — does not escape blatant hyperbolic encomium. Hilbert provides a detailed examination of the formal traits of Baudri's epitaphs in his Studien 77–181.Google Scholar

²⁵ It must be emphasized that Baudri never actually links the two words amor and iocus grammatically, although I demonstrate that they are conceptually inseparable for him. The strong physical implications of the phrase iocus amoris — and of its vernacular equivalents — would have been internally unacceptable to Baudri, since it would have destroyed the delicate ambiguity upon which the poetry thrives, and externally unacceptable to Baudri's ever-present critics.Google Scholar

²⁶ To Someone Who Had Promised Him a Letter A brother monk has reported to me news of you, Which I welcome, and I plead for a meeting. He reported that you do not forget me And quickly gave me your words of greeting. He reported that you love me ardently And that having seen me once, you carry me in your heart. He reported to me that if you had a reliable Carrier, you would send me a letter. I received with joy whatever he reported to me about you, And now I repay you with a contract of friendship: See, I will return a word of greeting to you who are greeting me, But only if you yourself will answer me in verse. I have joined words to verse, verse to words, So that I might be pleasing in some way at least. And I plead that another meeting place be given So that you might put yourself right before my eyes. Therefore send me, please, the letter through this (brother) of mine; Send me one which is suitable so it will please me more. But if you ask to whom I am actually sending this song, The conclusion indicates that by what it says: goodby, Odo.Google Scholar

²⁷ 252/XXXI.1–4; 191/CCXXIX, passim; 88/CL.4; etc. The word has a complex history within both the Classical and the Christian traditions. For the former, see Quadlbauer, Franz, Die antike Theorie der Genera dicendi im lateinischen Mittelalter (Vienna 1962) s.v. In the latter, it designated the language of the Vulgate in opposition to that of the Latin authors; see, for instance, Mohrmann, Christine, ‘Saint Augustine and the “Eloquentia,”’ in Études sur le Latin des Chrétiens (Rome 1961) I 351–70. Ovid employed the word frequently in the Heroides and in the Amores, where he associates it once (2.4.19) with the Hellenistic style of Callimachus.Google Scholar

²⁸ Leclercq, Jean, ‘L'Amitié dans les lettres au moyen âge,’ Revue du Moyen Age latin 1 (1945) 391–410: 409.Google Scholar

²⁹ Schumann 342: ‘Bedeutend kann man Baudri nicht nennen.’ Google Scholar

³⁰ Schumann's judgment represents only the most radical form of a refusal to acknowledge Baudri's right to be called a ‘poet’ at all. Even Baudri would never have called himself poeta, for he joined the rest of the medieval school world in reserving the title for the auctores or their modern equals. In the seventeenth century, the Benedictines condemned him primarily as a monk and refused even to consider a body of poems which they deemed inappropriate to the monastic spirit: see Histoire littéraire de la France (Paris 1869) XI 97ff. Schumann used the term as it had been reinterpreted by the Romantics to designate those lyric geniuses who, like Goethe, search out and preserve the meaning and value of experience. Writing in 1931, Schumann saw in Baudri an unacceptable person (and therefore poet) who was insignificant, weak, and soft.Google Scholar

³¹ Rhetorical terms are employed in this paper in the form and with the definitions used by Marbod in his De ornamentis verborum (PL 171.1687–92), to which Baudri would have had easy access. For a discussion of the relationship of Marbod's text to the rhetorical tradition, see Faral, Edmond, Les Arts poétiques (Paris 1924) 1–51; and Murphy, James, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance (Berkeley 1974) 80 et passim. Google Scholar

³² See Constable, Giles, The Letters of Peter the Venerable (Cambridge, Mass. 1967) II 25. The entire introduction to this volume constitutes an excellent overview of the medieval letter in this period, and I have made liberal use of it in this discussion of the genre. A new appraisal of the origins of the ars dictaminis has been made by Patt, William, ‘The Early “Ars Dictaminis” as Response to a Changing Society,’ Viator 9 (1978) 133–55.Google Scholar

³³ Among the many general treatments of the “the medieval Ovid,” I have found the following most helpful: Manitius, Max, “Beiträge zur Geschichte des Ovidius und anderer römischer Schriftsteller im Mittelalter,’ Philologus, Supplementband 7 (1899) 723–68; Battaglia, Salvatore, ‘La tradizione di Ovidio nel Medioevo,’ Filologia Romanza 6 (1959) 185–224; Munari, Franco, Ovid im Mittelalter (Zürich 1960); Rand, E. K., Ovid and his Influence (New York 1963); Viarre, Simone, La Survie d'Ouide dans la littérature scientifique des XII ^ème et XIII ^ème siècles (Poitiers 1966); Offermanns, Winfried, Die Wirkung Ovids auf die literarische Sprache der lateinischen Liebesdichtung des XL und XII. Jahrhunderts (Wuppertal 1970); Demats, Paule, ‘L'Ovide médiévale: Du philosophe au mythographe,’ in Fabula: Trois études de mythographie antique et médiévale (Geneva 1973) 107–77; Fyler, John, Chaucer and Ovid (New Haven 1979); Rosenstein, Roy, ‘Iocus amoenus’: Love, Play and Poetry in Troubadour Lyric (diss. Columbia 1980).Google Scholar

³⁴ See Haberg, Herman, Taxae pro communibus servitiis (Rome 1949) 293, which reveals that in the fourteenth century Bourgueil was being taxed the same amount as such houses as Ripoll, Savigny, and Préaux. Rabelais cites it still as a wealthy abbey in the sixteenth century (Gargantua ch. 52); for later evaluations of the abbey's wealth, see the Dictionnaire d'histoire X 233.Google Scholar

³⁵ Leclereq, Jean, ‘The Monastic Crisis of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,’ in Cluniac Monasticism in the Central Middle Ages, ed. Hunt, Noreen (Hamden, Conn. 1971) 217–37: 222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁶ In 1/XXXVI and 89/CLI, Baudri complains at some length about the onus of being abbot; in 126/CLXXXVIII.121–22, he links wealth and subordination, commenting that ‘I would prefer to be my own person as a poor man and to live thus for myself than not to live for myself as the rich man (under the control) of someone else’ (Esse meus pauper et sic michi uiuere mallem, / Quam michi non uiuam diues ego alterius).Google Scholar

³⁷ See Leclercq, Jean, Otia monastica: Études sur le uocabulaire de la contemplation au moyen âge (Rome 1963) especially 37–40 and 59.Google Scholar

³⁸ Ramackers, 85–86: ‘Vos igitur, filii in Christo karissimi, oportet regularis disciplinae institutioni sollicitius ac deuotius insudare, ut quanto a secularibus estis tumultibus liberi, tanto studiosius placere Deo totius mentis et animae uirtutibus anheletis … .’ Google Scholar

³⁹ 1/XXXVI.56: ‘Tell them he did not want to live an idle life’; 99/CLXI.153–54: ‘I prefer to devote myself to books and verses than to pass time idle like a packhorse.’ In both quotes, the word iners carries its etymological meaning ‘without ars, lacking discipline.’ Recognized throughout monastic history, the threat of otiositas belonged to the greater question of sloth; see Wenzel, Siegfried, The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill, N. C. 1960).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ The relationship between literacy and the Benedictine tradition is discussed in broad terms by Leclercq, Jean in his fine study of The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (3rd ed.; New York 1982).Google Scholar

⁴¹ In one poem Baudri attacks the venality of the teachers whose doctrines are based upon their own wills, concluding that the reader should become his own teacher through constant reading (77/CXXXIX. 132–56). His distaste erupts in a Martialian satire in another against the teacher Theobald who sent one of his young students to ask for money (112/CLXXIV).Google Scholar

⁴² 77/CXXXIX.171–73: ‘the Classical writings dispersed throughout the world which you seek fill the bookshelves of my monastery and await you; come to this place and embrace the peace of a holy life.’ Google Scholar

⁴³ A particularly useful overview of this question is provided by von den Steinen, Wolfram, ‘Humanismus um 1100,’ in Menschen im Mittelalter (Bern/Munich 1967) 196–214; although limited to Hildebert of Le Mans, the article carries implications for the entire Loire School.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Leclercq, , Love 180; also his articles ‘L'amitié,’ cited above, and ‘Le Genre épistolaire au moyen âge,’ Revue du Mogen Age latin 2 (1946) 63–70. The condemnations are mentioned by Constable II 2.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ In his list of synonyms for ‘letter’ (3 and note), Constable does not include tabulae (private letter); yet see Wattenbach, Wilhelm, Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter (3rd ed.; Leipzig 1896) 53, where the greater secrecy is rendered explicit in a passage written in 1075: ‘Anno Coloniensis cuidam familiares litteras, a se ipso in tabulis propter maiorem secreti cautelam conscriptas, dedit episcopo Halberstadensi preferendas.’ Google Scholar

⁴⁶ De Amasio ad Amasiam (Munich 1975) especially 7–21. See also Leclercq, Jean, ‘Lettres de S. Bernard: Histoire ou littérature?,’ Studi Medievali 3rd series 12 (1971) 1–74. Interesting theoretical observations are provided by Dörrie, Heinrich, Der heroische Brief (Berlin 1968) 7–30.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Love 180. This position excludes from view the political, social, and economic utility of friendship, even among monks.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Marbod's role in the revival of the poetic letter and in the adoption of the fictive first-person is reasonably clear, although some of his most ambitious creations were only published for the first time by Bulst, Walter, ‘Die Liebesbriefgedichte Marbods,’ in Liber floridus: Mittellateinische Studien Paul Lehmann … gewidmet (St. Ottilien 1950) 287–301, and are not well known. The general parallel between the letters of friendship of the members of the Loire School, particularly Baudri and Marbod, and those of the court poets around Charlemagne is clear, and Raby can make the statement that ‘these poets revived the cult of friendship which had graced the Carolingian court, and like the Carolingians they wrote epigrams and poetical epistles’ (I 338). Specific evidence is lacking, however, and it is not possible to say whether it is the poetic practice or the permanent recording of it which faltered between the ninth and the eleventh centuries. It is unfortunate that a more specific date for the De ornamentis verborum cannot be established; internal evidence indicates that Marbod wrote the piece for his students, i.e., after about 1069 (when he appears as scholasticus) and before 1096 (when he became bishop of Rennes). The poem was often copied and exercised a considerable influence; see Manitius III 724; and Murphy loc. cit. Abrahams states that Baudri's knowledge of rhetoric came from Marbod (xxix–xxx), but other sources were available. One should note that Manegold of Lautenbach, whose student Gerald of Loudun was enticed to Bourgueil (see 76/CXXXVIII) by Baudri, wrote an extant but unpublished commentary on the De inventione and probably one on the Ad Herennium as well, both completed before 1084 in France; see Dickey, Mary, ‘Some Commentaries on the De Inventione and Ad Herennium of the Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries,’ Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (1968) 1–41: 9ff.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ The importance of the Heroides for Baudri is underscored by his (presumably early) careful imitations 7/XLII (‘Paris Helene’) and 8/XLIII (‘Helena Paridi’), and by his inventive exchange 97/CLIX (‘Floras Ovidio’) and 98/CLX (‘Ovidius Floro suo’). See Ruhe 44–50 for a discussion of the reception of Ovid's Heroides in this period; his assertion of an interpretatio Christiana (47) in Baudri's letters ignores their Humanistic spirit. The Florus–Ovid letters are used to discuss the whole role of love poetry to social mores, and reveal a complete familiarity with the style of Ovid's letters, as has been demonstrated in detail by Schuelper, J., ‘Ovid aus der Sicht des Balderich von Bourgueil dargestellt anhand des Briefwechsels Florus–Ovid,’ Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 14 (1979) 93–118. That other authors in the Loire valley were equally interested in the Heroides is demonstrated by Stohlmann, Jürgen, “‘Deidamia Achilli”: Eine Ovid-Imitation aus dem 11. Jahrhundert,’ in Literatur und Sprache im europäischen Mittelalter: Festschrift für Karl Langosch zum 80. Geburtstag, edd. Alf Oennerfors et al. (Darmstadt 1973) 195–231. In this letter, which the editor assigns to the period of the Ovid-Renaissance and the Loire School (217), the same conflict between marital obligation and amatory inclination is explored. For the general history of the Heroides , see Dörrie, , Brief. Google Scholar

⁵⁰ See Constable 23–29 for interesting details about the procedures for sending letters in this period.Google Scholar

⁵¹ 144/CCVI, after 36: ‘whoever you are who will have read these lines, may your eyes see my imperfection and may you be the supplement of my imperfection.’ Google Scholar

⁵² Könsgen, Ewald, Epistolae duorum amantium (Leiden 1974) 11: ‘I direct (my) words to others, (my) intention to you.’ Google Scholar

⁵³ See Leclercq, Jean, Monks and Love in Twelfth-Century France: Psycho-historical Essays (Oxford 1979) 66–69, where he agrees with Demats, Fabula 116: ‘Baudri, abbé de Bourgueil et évêque de Dol, est à tous égards une exception. Si son ovidianisme impénitent annonce celui des Orléanais il s'en distingue par sa candeur. C'est la passion d'un poète qui dédaigne de se justifier par des astuces d'écolâtre, et d'ailleurs ne se sent pas en faute.’ Whether it was Baudri or the preservation and transmission of his poetry which was an exception to the times is, for me, an open question.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ See the discussion by Fiske, Adelle, ‘Alcuin and Mystical Friendship,’ Studi Medievali 3. serie 2 (1961) 551–75; repr. in her Friends and Friendship in the Monastic Tradition (Cuernavaca 1970) 8/1–8/25.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Leclercq, Jean, Love 181–82, gives the general argument; details can be found in Fiske, Friends, where she observes that ‘Friendship, so essential to the ancient polis, found new significance in the city of God: it was seen as a form, even as the highest form of Christian caritas and as a means for the formation of the Christian or the monk to perfection and union with God’ (8/1).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Leclercq, , ‘L'Amitié’ 400.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Ibid. 404.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ 205/CCXLIII.9–10: ‘let amor which joins and unites two separate things unite you both’; 103/CLXV.5–8: ‘A journey has concerned me that I would be unable to write back; and yet it never forced me to forget you; you were always a comrade and companion of this task, and I think that you shared my life.' 6/XLI.11–14:’ Sique uoles mecum stationem continuare,/Cor pectusque meum dimidiabo tibi; / Dimidiabo tibi, quod erit michi dimidiandum, Dimidiabo meam, si iubeas, animam.' The letter-poem from which the first quote is taken is presented as a single text by Abrahams, and Hilbert, even, although Schumann pointed out in his review of Abrahams' edition (585–86) that a lacuna probably existed after the fourth line. The switch from tibi (line 1) to vos (line 9) indicates a problem. Since at the end of the subsequent poem (206/CCXLIV.1–30) at the bottom of the verso of the folio one finds the rubric versus abbatis without a corresponding text, one might conclude that the scribe unwittingly joined two separate poems.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ 206/CCXLIV. 17–20: ‘I ask you to owe me what friends owe each other who have been unified by indissoluble amor, who never want different things for each other, who feel, live, and die as the same person.’ Google Scholar

⁶⁰ 13/XLVIII.7–8: ‘(my) other self or (my own) self, let (our) two spirits be one, and let (our) two bodies become the same body.’ Google Scholar

⁶¹ De amicitia 21: ‘est enim is [uerus amicus] qui est tamquam alter idem.’ In the edition for the Guillaume Budé series, Laurand, L. comments about the proverbial nature of this concept: L'Amitié (Paris 1928) 43 note. See also the valuable citations and comments by Fiske, Adelle, ‘Paradisus homo amicus,’ Speculum 40 (1965) 436–59: 444–45.Google Scholar

⁶² Wright, T., The Anglo-latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the Twelfth Century (London 1872) II 219: ‘A certain philosopher was asked for the definition of a friend; reflecting first for a bit, he spoke thus: “another self”’ (1–2).Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Ernault, Léon, ‘Marbode, évêque de Rennes, sa vie et ses œuvres (1035–1123),’ Bulletin et mémoires de la Société archéologique du dipartement d'Ille-et-Vilaine (Rennes 1890) 212. The evidence for the date is assembled by Andre Wilmart, ‘Le Florilège de Saint-Gatien: Contribution à l'étude des poèmes d'Hildebert et de Marbode,’ Revue bénédictine 48 (1936) 236 n. On the Liber itself, see Bulst, , Studien 209–27.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Radulfs poetry has been edited by Ogle, Marbury and Schullian, Dorothy, Rodulfi Tortarii carmina (Rome 1933), where the eleven letters are found on 247–343. The many Classical references in the letters are explored by Bar, Francis, Les Epîtres latines de Raoul de Tourtier (1065–1114?) (Paris 1937). The portion of the second letter which contains the story of Amicus and Amelius has been translated by Leach, MacEdward, Amis and Amiloun (London 1937) 101–105; his introduction supplies a detailed examination of the sources and their interrelation.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ See, for instance, poems 95/CLVII and 138/CC.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ See the influential passage in Cicero, De amicitia 27: ‘ex [uirtute] exardescit siue amor siue amicitia, utrumque enim ductum est ab amando; amare autem nihil est aliud nisi eum ipsum deligere, quem ames, nulla indigentia, nulla utilitate quaesita.’ The range of amor is best appreciated through the entries in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae s.v. A useful discussion is provided by Dronke, Peter, Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love-Lyric (2nd ed.; Oxford 1968) I 195–200.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Fiske, , ‘Paradisus’ 447, and elsewhere in her articles; also Southern, R. W. in the passage cited below.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ See Boswell, John, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (Chicago 1980), for a general history whose bias, however, at times distorts the evidence. Peter Damian's text (PL 145.169–90) has been translated recently by Payer, Pierre as The Book of Gomorrah: An Eleventh-century Treatise Against Clerical Homosexual Practices (Waterloo, Ontario 1982).Google Scholar

⁶⁹ An overview of the quantity of satirical and laudatory poetic texts on this topic, and of its contemporary discussion, is now provided by Stehling, Thomas, Medieval Latin Poems of Male Love and Friendship (New York 1984), who cautions: ‘it is important … to keep in mind that these poems have a different meaning in medieval culture from what they have in ours … . What may seem to us the expressions of erotic longing or physical intimacy may, in another culture, be merely effusiveness’ (xix). For the cult of Ganymede in this period, see Boswell 243–66; Southern, R. W., Saint Anselm and His Biographer (Cambridge 1963) 67–76; von Moos, Peter, Hildebert von Lavardin 1056–1133: Humanitas an der Schwelle des höfischen Zeitalters (Stuttgart 1965) 236–39; Stehling, Thomas, ‘To Love a Medieval Boy,’ Journal of Homosexuality 8 (1983) 151–70; Birkhan, Helmut, ‘Qu'est-ce qui est préférable de l'hétérosexualité ou de l'homosexualité? Le témoignage d'un poème latin,’ in Amour, mariage et transgressions au moyen âge, edd. Buschinger, Danielle and Crépin, André (Göppingen 1984) 25–45. Robert, Ernst Curtius has discussed the topical nature of pederasty in his compendium European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages , trans. Trask, W. R. (New York 1953) 113–17. Accusations of ‘sodomy’ and particularly of pederasty were commonly made against the schools in this period, as in the letter from Ivo of Chartres to Pope Urban II cited above, where the young bishop-elect of Orleans is accused of being a ‘Flora’ (i.e., a loose woman) for the King of France.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ The following poems are written to a puer or a iuvenis: 3/XXXVIII (puer, 3.56); 4–5/XXXIX–XL and 129–130/CXCI–CXCII (puer, 129.25); 10/XLV (implied iuuenis 10.9–12); 93/CLV (puer, 93.1); 94/CLVI (puer, 94.99); 113/CLXXV (puer, rubric); 115/CLXXVII (puer, 115.7); 118–120/CLXXX–CLXXXII (implied puer, 120.19–20 and 33–34); 143/CCV (puer, 143.26); 150/CCXII (puer, 150.4); 191/CCXXIX (implied puer, 191.57); 195/CCXXXIII (implied puer, 195.12–14); 197/CCXXXV (puer, 197.13–16); 217/CCL (puer, 217.3). Another possibility is provided by 192/CCXXX, if the ‘Duke Roger’ is Roger II of Sicily (b. 1097) and not his father Roger I († 1101), as seems likely. One should note that puer/iuuenis has a great chronological range in medieval texts, extending at times to include men in their 30s. In addition, Baudri composed four epitaphs for the nineteen-year-old Alexander, a canonicus and puer from Tours (40–43/CII–CV) whose youth and beauty had tainted his soul. In both his poem to Godfrey of Reims (99/CLXI.183ff) and another apologetic poem (85/CXLVII.35) Baudri stresses that his poems of desire to young men are merely fictional exercises of poetic craft. Commenting on the latter text, Ruhe inexplicably states that ‘die Briefe an Knaben wird man vergeblich unter seinen Werken suchen’ (41).Google Scholar

⁷¹ 193/CCXXXI.49–50: ‘I am living for myself if I live for you; my greatest desire is to do something which might please you.’ Google Scholar

⁷² 11/XLVI.13–14: ‘It is also that kind of holy friendship which is unmarked by any taint.’ Google Scholar

⁷³ On the figure of Muriel, to whom Hildebert and other poets wrote as well, see Brian Scott, A., Carmina minora (Leipzig 1969) xxvii–xxviii, where earlier literature is cited.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ 200/CCXXXVIII.7: ‘Quod sonat iste breuis, amor est et carmen amoris.’ Constance's attachment to Le Ronceray (Sancta Maria Caritatis), a convent with a school noted for the noble origins of its students, was first suggested by Pasquier, (164ff.) and then more dogmatically by Bulst, ‘Liebesbriefgedichte’ 300–301, who promised a full treatment of the question which has not yet appeared. In the cartulary of Le Ronceray, one does find all the names mentioned in these poems during this time period, including ‘Emma grammatica’ who appears in 1118; see Marchegay, Paul, Chroniques des églises d'Anjou (Paris 1869) III 282 et passim. Google Scholar

⁷⁵ See the good discussion of Baudri's invitation to love and poetry by Offermanns 106–11, who notes that Baudri's poem displays a ‘Spiel mit der intentionalen Ambivalenz und allegorischer Selbstexegese’ (109); and of Constance's response by Dronke, Peter, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge 1984) 84–90, who perceptively comments (88ff.) that ‘hers is not the urbane, teasing tone with which Baudri had addressed her … she had an intuition of the kind of anguish Heloise was to live out some decades later… .’ Google Scholar

⁷⁶ The Chartres School has been the subject of many studies. See the recent overview by Southern, R. W., Platonism, Scholastic Method and the School of Chartres (London 1978), whose notes provide access to earlier literature.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ 97/CLIX.45–60: ‘Both sexes knew how to love for a long time without poetry: You recite what earlier the world has assumed. You do not teach the world, the world taught you: Argus is deceived without your verses, Without your verses the walls of Troy are brought down, Venus knows how to love without your verses. God filled our nature with love; Nature teaches us what he taught her. If love is to be blamed, the agent of love is to be blamed; for the agent of love will be the agent of the crime. That we exist is a crime if it is a crime that we love; God who gave me being, granted me loving. And yet God himself did not make evil when he made love; for what is evil is born from vice. You were the reciter, not the author of love; no flame was ignited by your teaching.’ The term assumpta persona appears in the rubric of one of Marbod's love letters where the speaker is a woman; see Bulst, , ‘Liebesbrief-gediente’ 297.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Noted also by Boswell 247, and Schuelper 117. It is significant that Schuelper has traced verbal parallels for much of these two letters to Ovid's own works, but has found no Ovidian source for the passage quoted here.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Dronke, Peter, ‘L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle,’ Studi Medievali 6 (1965) 389–422. The quote appears in 408 note, and is taken from the De divisione naturae 1.74 in PL 122.519.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ A convenient survey of the question in English is found in Economou, George, The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature (Cambridge, Mass. 1972), where further literature is cited. For the intermediary role of the Carolingians, see Stahl, William Harris, Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts, I: The Quadrivium of Martianus Capella, with a Study of the Allegory and the Verbal Disciplines by Johnson, Richard and Burge, E. L. (New York 1971) 55–71.Google Scholar

⁸¹ See Southern, R. W., The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven 1953) 197–201; MacKinney, Loren, Bishop Fulbert and Education at the School of Chartres (Notre Dame, Ind. 1957); and Behrends, Frederick, The Letters of Fulbert of Chartres (Oxford 1976) xiii–xlii.Google Scholar

⁸² Strecker, Karl, ed., Die Cambridger Lieder (Berlin 1926) 29–32: ‘Aurea personet lira.’ The melody has been preserved and is edited in a modal transcription by Giuseppi Vecchi, Poesia latina medievale (Parma 1958), facing p. 113. The poem exists in a parody making use of the same melody collected — and probably written — at the monastery of Saint-Martial in Limoges at the end of the tenth century (Strecker 32). Vecchi does not believe that the poem was actually written by Fulbert, , but comments: ‘Il componimento è espressione di quel mondo di cultura, nel quale la musica aveva un posto preminente; mondo a cui Gerberto d'Aurillac aveva dato impulso a Reims e lo scolaro, Fulberto, aveva fatto prosperare a Chartres’ (467). For other treatments of the nightingale in eleventh-century poetry, see Raby, F. J. E., ‘Philomela praevia temporis amoeni,’ in Mélanges J. de Ghellinck (Gembloux 1951) II 435–48; and Klopsch, Paul, ‘Carmen de Philomela,’ in Literatur und Sprache im europäischen Mittelalter: Festschrift fär Karl Langosch zum 70. Geburtstag, edd. Alf Oennerfors et al. (Darmstadt 1973) 173–94.Google Scholar

⁸³ This statement concludes a long description of the activity of Marbod which is found in Ulger's eulogy (PL 171.1463), lines 3–12: ‘In toto mundo non invenitur eundo / Unus compar ei nominis atque rei. / Omnes facundos sibi vidimus esse secundus: / Nullus in ingenio par nec in eloquio. / Cessit ei Cicero, cessit Maro junctus Homero: / Ut dicam breviter, vicit eos pariter. / Per cunctas metas per quas sua se tulit aetas, / Nulla sibi placuit res nisi quae decuit. / Curans ut fieret virtutem quod redoleret, / Transtulit huc studium, transtulit ingenium.’ Google Scholar

⁸⁴ PL 171.1717.1–3 and 16–20: ‘The grace of spring prohibits me from being rude in my ways and I derive my mental form from the elements; I rejoice along with Nature herself and rightly, it seems to me … . Whoever sees such beautiful things, and does not soften and smile, is intractible and there is contention in his breast. Whoever does not want to describe with praise the face of the earth begrudges its author/source whose glory is served by harsh winter, summer, autumn, the virtue of spring.’ I have not found a general discussion of honestas in this period, but this Humanist ethical concept is central for an understanding of the eleventh-century attempt to integrate natura and Deus. Von Moos (Hildebert 114 and n.) points out that the standard ancient source for the honestum and its separation from the utile was Cicero's De officiis. For the twelfth-century discussion see the recent general studies by Chenu, M.-D., Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century, trans. Taylor, Jerome and Lester, K. Little (Chicago 1968); and La filosofia della Natura nel Medioevo: Atti del terzo Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia Medioevale (Milan 1966).Google Scholar

⁸⁵ See Dronke, , Medieval, esp. I 163ff.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ See the citations in ThLL s.v. Google Scholar

⁸⁷ 252/XXXI.9–10: ‘Would that the same foedus amoris might join you to me as the love I have requested joins you to me.’ The denial is made in 85/CXLVII.40: ‘Nullus amor foedus michi quidlibet associauit.’ Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Raby, F. J. E., ‘Amor and Amicitia: A Medieval Poem,’ Speculum 40 (1965) 599–610: 605. In Radolf, , see II.18–20 and IX.52. See also the edition of the Regensburg love-verses by Dronke, Peter, Medieval, II 422–47: IX.1, XVII.9, XX.2–3, XXII.1–3, XXIII.2, XXV.8, etc. Dronke's translations blur at times the distinction and relation between the two words. Foedus was already being used in this sense in Late Antiquity; see Schmid, Wolfgang, ‘Ein christlicher Heroidenbrief des 6. Jahrhunderts,’ in Studien zur Textgeschichte und Textkritik: Festschrift Guenther Jachlann (Cologne 1959) 253–63. It reflected the Ciceronian interpretation of friendship as an alliance of mutual obligation, although it was adopted by monastic writers in the ninth century; see Fiske, , Friends 8/6 and elsewhere.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁹ 1/XXXVI.127–30: ‘So hasten; go quickly so that you will return quickly; carefully relate everything said by my friends. Greet them first so that they will greet me in return: so the pact of friendship requires.’ Google Scholar

⁹⁰ 148/CCX.9–10: ‘make this letter into a special pledge of my love for you until a meeting provides the rest.’ Google Scholar

⁹¹ 128/CXC.1–2 and 4: ‘You have broken the peace, severed the treaty and the pact, and now we are separate, who once were one … it is you who defile the troth which I preserve so well.’ Google Scholar

⁹² See the list of Abrahams xxviii, who is dubious about any influence from either author. 23/LVIII.1 (‘Obsecro iam parcat tam sepe uenire ueredus’) announces its debt to Martial 12.14.1 and 141/CCIII.1 (‘Murem mons peperit, quia fatur muta Beatrix’) clearly derives from Horace, Ars poetica 139. See also Tilliette, , ‘Culture’ 83–84. Information about medieval access to the Classical satirists can be found in the useful study of Udo Kindermann, Satyra: Die Theorie der Satire im Mittellateinischen, Vorstudie zu einer Gattungsgeschichte (Nuremberg 1978). The following poems are reprehensive to one degree or another, although not all are satires in the strict sense of the word: 3/XXXVIII, 4–5/XXXIX–XL, 96/CLVIII, 100/CLXII, 104/CLXVI, 106/CLXVIII, 112/CLXXIV, 113/CLXXV, 115/CLXXVII, 119/CLXXXI, 120/CLXXXII, 121/CLXXXIII, 127/CLXXXIX, 128/CXC, 131/CXCIII, 135/CXCVII, 140/CCII, 141/CCIII, 143/CCV, 151/CCXIII, 203/CCXLI, 207/CCXLVIII.Google Scholar

⁹³ 102/CLXIV.5–6: ‘now let stylus, tablets, and messenger be gone; let us be for each other what these things used to be for us.’ Google Scholar

⁹⁴ A general discussion of the use of wax tablets in the medieval period can be found in Wattenbach 51–89. I have limited the treatment in the text to Baudri's own comments, both to illustrate his self-referential habits and to supplement the data available in Wattenbach, who knew only a few of Baudri's poems.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Although the poem intones a mock lament which all commentators have noted, it proceeds to celebrate in otherwise unnecessary detail the ingenious fusion of ars and materies by the artifex. In such a context, the description (11–32) lacks the gravity of later, more religiously weighted treatments on similar topics, but it nevertheless is useful to demonstrate the contemporary cult of the ingenious artifact and its auctor in the schools.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ 101/CLXIII.11–13: ‘One morning I had prepared my tablets and stylus and was about to begin my poems, as was my habit. I was alone therefore, and I usually spend my free time alone.’ Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Wattenbach knows of only a few instances in which the tablets were sent as epistola. It is not always clear in Baudri's poems whether the request for tabulae refers literally to the object or by transference to the text it carries.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Wagenvoort, H., ‘Ludus poeticus’: Studies in Roman Literature, Culture and Religion (Leiden 1956) 37. See ThLL ss. vv. Contrast vester ludus mecum in 12/XLVII.44 with uobiscum iocos … meos in 109/CLXXI.16.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ See the glossary in Abrahams under alludo for most of these compounds. She does not list preludo (126/CLXXXVIII.107) or eludo (101/CLXIII.16). In its context (eludere uoces), the latter appears to mean ‘to pun.’ Her listing of ioculare is erroneous, since it is an adjective in the text cited (Schumann, review 594).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Abrahams (391 n.) identifies the dux Rotgerius of 192/CCXXX as Roger II of Sicily (born 1097). Her dating of this poem (1107–1130) is based upon an erroneous interpretation of lines 14–15, where the poet says that the duke's reputation has reached him located by chance near the borders of Brittany. His chance location near — and not in — Brittany cannot be understood to indicate that he had become archbishop of Dol, however, because he refers to himself in the same poem as ‘the one from Bourgueil’ (4). If Roger II is indeed the recipient and not his father († 1101), then he was at most ten years old and this is another letter-poem to a puer. Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ 85/CXLVII.35–39: ‘I utter words in many roles and describe myself now as rejoicing, now as sorrowing; and speaking like a young man, ‘I hate’ or ‘I love’ something or other … but it's not true, I make it all up.’ Marbod's role in popularizing the fictive first-person speaker among the Loire poets is important and needs investigation.Google Scholar

¹⁰² The cultural importance of the concept of ‘play’ or ‘game’ has been a topic of detailed research since the publication of Huizinga's, Johan Homo Ludens, first published in Dutch in 1938, then translated into English as Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (Boston 1950). Many efforts have been made since then to expand and apply his observations. Roger Caillois attempted to create a typology of cultural games based upon motivating force in his Les Jeux et les hommes: Le Masque et le vertige (Paris 1958), now translated as Man, Play and Games (New York 1979). See also the publications of Brian Sutton-Smith, , some of whose most theoretical work has been collected in his The Folkgames of Children (Austin 1972). Some of the more important literary implications of this research were first drawn in a collection of essays edited by Ehrmann, Jacques, Game, Play and Literature (Boston 1968); of particular importance for medieval literature is the stimulating study of Olson, Glending, Literature as Recreation in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y. 1982).Google Scholar

¹⁰³ Vorlesungen und Abhandlungen II: Einführung in die lateinische Philologie des Mittelalters , ed. Lehmann, Paul (Munich 1911) 113. Traube applied the term to school poetry of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, arguing that one could categorize the periods according to those poets who seemed most appropriate for emulation.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Munari 3.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ See especially the fine essay by Demats, , Fabula 5–60. On the popularity of Martianus Capella in the ninth and succeeding centuries, see Stahl, , Martianus Capella 55–71.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Curtius, , European 367. Even Demats, who knows of Baudri's poetry, ignores the significance of this passage in her study of the allegorization of fabula. Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ For the correct constitution of 154/CCXVI see Hilbert, , Studien 7–25; summarized in Baldricus 308–10.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Demats, , Fabula 56. For Fulgentius' life and works, see now Langlois, Pierre, ‘Les Œuvres de Fulgence le mythographe et le problème des deux Fulgence,’ Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 7 (1964) 94–105; he comments that the Mitologiae is ‘une compilation de Texplication stoïco-néoplatonicienne des mythes’ (95) by a Christian author. Details about the medieval treatments of Fulgentius (without mention of Baudri) can be found in Hans Liebeschütz, Fulgentius metaforalis: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der antiken Mythologie im Mittelalter (Leipzig 1926) 1–43. Primary material in 154/CCXVI.239–40: ‘Grecia mendax est, sed honeste Grecia mendax / Alludit rebus garrulitate sua’; 651–54: ‘Ecce poetarum perlecta garrulitate / Inuestigemus, qui<d> latet interius. / Credo, uiuit adhuc nobiscum fabula lecta; / Viuit enim, quicquid fabula significat’; 833–34: ‘Ergo alium sensum Grecorum fabula querit; / Dicit, non sentit Grecia ridiculum.’ Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ In spite of Max Manitius' assertion that this poem is without interest because of its close adherence to its source (892), the very fact that Baudri turned to Fulgentius — who himself was concerned with the moral reading of Ovidian and other fabulae — is significant, since by Manitius' own indices it appears that Fulgentius was essentially uncited in the eleventh century despite having been widely studied in the Carolingian era; see Laistner, M. L. W., ‘Fulgentius in the Carolingian Age,’ in The Intellectual Heritage of the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y. 1957) 202–15. A detailed examination of Baudri's reworking would be useful. The lack of citations contradicts expectations produced by the relatively high number of extant manuscripts of the Mitologiae from this period; see the list established by Jungmann, Emil, ‘Quaestiones Fulgentianae,’ in Acta Societatis Philologae Lipsiensis 1 (1872) 61–71.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ There is an extensive literature on the relationship between the tapestry Baudri describes and the extant Bayeux tapestry; see the literature cited by Tilliette, , ‘Chambre.’ Google Scholar

¹¹¹ The Neoplatonic concept of ingenium has a long and important history. Baudri, whose access is surely indirect, speaks of it primarily as the human faculty responsible for creation, ‘genius’ or ‘inventiveness,’ which is most concentrated in the craftsman (artifex). Although not a philosopher, he clearly employs it with the original implications of mediation between the world of ideal forms and the world of matter. Evidence of this awareness is provided by poem 92/CLIV, where the long description of his stylus (7–32) displays many technical terms associated with Neoplatonism: ‘De ferro grafium ferrarius effigiauit; / Effigiale perit, materiale manet. / Quod manet, est ferrum, stilus id, quod perdidit esse, / Esse quod artificis extudit ingenium’ (7–10). The medieval grammarian's use of the word derived to a large extent from Ovid's work (and its interpreters), where it designated the faculty responsible for the verbal and material creation of fabula. Baudri is little interested, however, in the epistemological function of the faculty and the allegorical figure associated with it which has attracted so much critical attention; see Bundy, Murray, The Theory of Imagination in Classical and Mediaeval Thought (Urbana, Illinois 1927); Silverstein, Theodore, ‘The Fabulous Cosmogony of Bernardus Silvestris,’ Modern Philology 46 (1948–49) 92–116; Wetherbee, Winthrop, Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century (Princeton 1972); Stock, Brian, Myth and Science in the Twelfth Century (Princeton 1972); Nitzsche, Jane Chance, The Genius Figure in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (New York 1975); and Baker, Denise N., ‘The Priesthood of Genius: A Study of the Medieval Tradition,’ Speculum 51 (1976) 277–91.Google Scholar

¹¹² See Munari 11, where detailed study is cited.Google Scholar

¹¹³ Munari 29. The fame of Orleans for Ovidian study and composition was established in earnest around the middle of the twelfth century by such figures as the poet Hugh Primas, the glossist Arnulf of Orleans, the theorist Matthew of Vendôme, and the anonymous authors of the comediae. Yet Arnulf himself states that the study of the auctores by his teacher Hilarius (fl. 1120–40) first brought fame to Orleans (Maître, Écoles 108), and one must assume that his expository work was itself based upon a well-established tradition to which Baudri gives indirect testimony. See the general overview of Delisle, Léopold, ‘Les Écoles d'Orléans au xii^ème et au xiii^ème siècles,’ Annuaire: Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de France 7 (1869) 139–54.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ Munari 26–29: ‘Ovid, den vor dem 11. Jahrhundert nur die wenigen Gebildeten gelesen hatten, hat bei der Literatur des hohen Mittelalters, der lateinischen wie der volkssprachlichen, Pate gestanden’ (29). On the pseudo-Ovidiana, see the studies by Lehmann, Paul: Die Parodie im Mittelalter (Munich 1922) and Pseudoantike Literatur des Mittelalters (Leipzig 1927); and Lenz, Friedrich, ‘Einführende Bemerkungen zu den mittelalterlichen Pseudo-Ovidiana,’ Das Altertum 5 (1959) 171–82, reprinted in Ovid, edd. von Albrecht, Michael and Zinn, Ernst (Darmstadt 1968) 546–66.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ Best known is the mid-twelfth-century commentator, Arnulf of Orleans, although the field is vast; see Ghisalberti, F., Arnolfo d'Orleans: Un cultore di Ovidio nel secolo XII (Memorie del R. Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere, Classe di lettere, scienze morali e storiche 24; Milan 1932). An excellent overview of the literature on the topic is provided by Quain, Edwin A., ‘The Medieval Accessus ad Auctores,’ Traditio 3 (1945) 215–64; and Offermanns, , Wirkung 11 n. 4.Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ 99/CLXI.183–99: ‘They also object that I have written to girls no less than to boys, speaking in the manner of young men. For I have written some things which accept love, and both sexes are pleasing to my verse. I preferred to try to say what I could than to exempt from my verses what I loved. For if I wanted something, if I loved something ardently, my parchment would be ignorant of this love. Let no confession be publicized in my poem; let me confess my crimes alone to a confidant. No one's love is to be recounted in public; whoever loves, let him cautiously conceal the workings of love. And yet there was no love for me, no prickings; I like to exercise my imagination. My poetry was playful and my conduct chaste; the game is sung with a most virtuous heart. However popular opinion wants me to be, I am always what I am, and my verses do not command me. The use of poetry has not affected adversely my character nor will it, it seems to me, adversely affect my acts.’ I have adopted Hilbert's emendation of consolo to cum solo (192), but wonder if the original word is not related to consul, ‘a private adviser, secretary’ (as in 149/CCXI.5), whether through scribal (consolo for console/consule) or declensional error (*consulus for consul). The poem's date was established by Williams, ‘Godfrey’ 29 n.Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ Offermanns, , Wirkung 18.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ This string of apologetic statements has been assembled from the following texts: 1/XXXVI.11–68; 85/CXLVII.1–50; 86/CXLVIII.29–35; 91/CLIII.13–16; 97/CLIX.45–60; 98/CLX.57–70; 99/CLXI.137–212; 109/CLXXI.11–12; 142/CCIV.3–4; 193/CCXXXI.97–108; 196/CCXXXIV.1–14.Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ Huizinga, , Homo 8–13.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ 108/CLXX: ‘O would that I had been my own messenger Or the letter which your hand stroked, And that I had then the same consciousness I have now And that you would not have recognized me until I desired. Then I would have explored your face and mind as you were reading, but only if I could have contained myself long enough. The rest we would have left to the propitious gods and to fortune, For God comes sooner to grace than man.’ Google Scholar

¹²¹ Abrahams compiled a ‘liste classée des destinataires’ in her edition (lvii–lx), but unfortunately it is neither accurate nor complete. I have been forced to start anew, and hope to publish my results in the future. In lieu of a detailed accounting of the numbers presented here, I shall merely list the number of the poem or poems which are addressed to persons in a given category or which contain within them references to persons in that category. I have included indirect as well as direct correspondents, eliminating most of the persons for whom he wrote epitaphs unless internal evidence indicated that Baudri's involvement was literary and ‘special.’ Abbots: 12/XLVII and possibly 117/CLXXIX; priors: 31–33/XCIII–XCV, 117/CLXXIX, 218/CCLI; archbishops: 22–24 + 155–60 / LVII–LIX.1 + LIX.2–7–LXIII, 95/CLVII, 146–47/CCVIII–CCIX; bishop: 194+206/CCXXXII+ CCXLIV.1–30; archdeacon: 87/CXLIX; secular nobles: 134–35/CXCVI–CXCVII, 192/ CCXXX and possibly the ‘sister’ in 136/CXCVIII (see Abrahams 255 n.); architect: 168–69/LXXI–LXXII. The last two tituli were composed for a palatial house in Poitiers. The first offers an interesting contemporary view of the modern Romanesque style: ‘You who praise the Roman palaces gaping at their craft, praise rather this great work of John. Here the sculpture is fitting, the arrangement of the stones appropriate. Poitiers is praised as much for this work as Rome is praised for her marble columns, since indeed much good fortune created this work.’ (Qui fabricis inhians Romana palatia laudas, / <H>oc potius lauda grande Iohannis opus. / <H>ic sculptura decet, saxorum conuenit ordo. / <T>antum laudatur Pictauis hoc opere / Quantum marmoreis laudatur Roma columnis, / <H>oc siquidem rerum copia fecit opus.) I have altered the punctuation at the end, since the presence of siquidem in the final line precludes its being an independent clause.oc potius lauda grande Iohannis opus. / ic sculptura decet, saxorum conuenit ordo. / antum laudatur Pictauis hoc opere / Quantum marmoreis laudatur Roma columnis, / oc siquidem rerum copia fecit opus.) I have altered the punctuation at the end, since the presence of siquidem in the final line precludes its being an independent clause.' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Abrahams+compiled+a+‘liste+classée+des+destinataires’+in+her+edition+(lvii–lx),+but+unfortunately+it+is+neither+accurate+nor+complete.+I+have+been+forced+to+start+anew,+and+hope+to+publish+my+results+in+the+future.+In+lieu+of+a+detailed+accounting+of+the+numbers+presented+here,+I+shall+merely+list+the+number+of+the+poem+or+poems+which+are+addressed+to+persons+in+a+given+category+or+which+contain+within+them+references+to+persons+in+that+category.+I+have+included+indirect+as+well+as+direct+correspondents,+eliminating+most+of+the+persons+for+whom+he+wrote+epitaphs+unless+internal+evidence+indicated+that+Baudri's+involvement+was+literary+and+‘special.’+Abbots:+12/XLVII+and+possibly+117/CLXXIX;+priors:+31–33/XCIII–XCV,+117/CLXXIX,+218/CCLI;+archbishops:+22–24+++155–60+/+LVII–LIX.1+++LIX.2–7–LXIII,+95/CLVII,+146–47/CCVIII–CCIX;+bishop:+194+206/CCXXXII++CCXLIV.1–30;+archdeacon:+87/CXLIX;+secular+nobles:+134–35/CXCVI–CXCVII,+192/+CCXXX+and+possibly+the+‘sister’+in+136/CXCVIII+(see+Abrahams+255+n.);+architect:+168–69/LXXI–LXXII.+The+last+two+tituli+were+composed+for+a+palatial+house+in+Poitiers.+The+first+offers+an+interesting+contemporary+view+of+the+modern+Romanesque+style:+‘You+who+praise+the+Roman+palaces+gaping+at+their+craft,+praise+rather+this+great+work+of+John.+Here+the+sculpture+is+fitting,+the+arrangement+of+the+stones+appropriate.+Poitiers+is+praised+as+much+for+this+work+as+Rome+is+praised+for+her+marble+columns,+since+indeed+much+good+fortune+created+this+work.’+(Qui+fabricis+inhians+Romana+palatia+laudas,+/+oc+potius+lauda+grande+Iohannis+opus.+/+ic+sculptura+decet,+saxorum+conuenit+ordo.+/+antum+laudatur+Pictauis+hoc+opere+/+Quantum+marmoreis+laudatur+Roma+columnis,+/+oc+siquidem+rerum+copia+fecit+opus.)+I+have+altered+the+punctuation+at+the+end,+since+the+presence+of+siquidem+in+the+final+line+precludes+its+being+an+independent+clause.>Google Scholar

¹²² Monks: 90/CLII, 114/CLXXVI, two in 117/CLXXIX, 127/CLXXXIX, 131/CXCIII, 150/CCXII (also called puer); clerics: 40–43/CII–CV, 101/CLXIII, 129–30/CXCI–CXCII (if the same as in 4–5/XXXIX–XL, also called puer); teachers: 28–30/XC–XCII, 74/CXXXVI, 75–77/CXXXVII–CXXXIX, 86/CXLVIII, 91/CLIII, 99–100/CLXI–CLXII, 112/CLXXIV, 193+252/CCXXXI+XXXI, 223/11,250/XXIX; young men, see above, n. 70; young women: 136/CXCVIII, 137CXCIX, 138/CC, 139+153/CCI + CCXV, 140–41/CCII–CCIII, 142+200 + 201+213/CCIV+CCXXXVIII–CCXXXIX+LXXXV, 207/CCXLVIII.Google Scholar

¹²³ One should note that although none of the letter-poems is specifically sent south of the Loire, Baudri had to appear at the Poitevin court often, since the Count of Poitiers was his primary feudal lord. According to the founding documents, in fact, the Count would have had to confirm Baudri's election; see Gallia Christiana XIV 665B: ‘Quo electo, duci Aquita-norum filiisque eius eum repraesentent, et ipse ei donum praebeat sine ulla contradictione aut aliqua contrarietate.’ The nun Constance complains that she cannot see Baudri because Poitou occupies too much of his attention (201/CCXXXIX.81–82), a statement which Baudri confirms at the beginning of the Itinerarium in the passage quoted earlier. Baudri did write many epitaphs for ecclesiastic and secular figures south of the Loire, and his Historia Hierosolymitana is preceded by a prose letter to Peter, Abbot of Maillezais.Google Scholar

¹²⁴ That poetic reputations at this time were primarily regional is pointed out with interesting examples by Wilmart, André, ‘Le Florilège’ 6 and n.Google Scholar

¹²⁵ See the general discussions by Bezzola, , Origines II.2 366–91 et passim; and by Brinkmann, , Entstehungsgeschichte 18–36.Google Scholar

¹²⁶ The Implications of Literacy (Princeton 1983) 90–92.Google Scholar

¹²⁷ 130/CXCII.1–3: ‘Classical letters shape your character; your character is as it should be for a cleric: namely, witty, light-hearted, playful (or: poetry-loving), amicable.’ Google Scholar

¹²⁸ Offermanns, , Wirkung 5 n. 5: ‘Dieser Begriff muss möglichst weit gefasst werden, denn unter ihn fällt jeder, der kein ungebildeter Laie ist.’ Google Scholar

¹²⁹ See especially his articles ‘The Nobility in Medieval France’ and ’The Origins of Knighthood,’ both collected and translated in The Chivalrous Society, trans. Postan, Cynthia (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1977) 94–111 and 158–70.Google Scholar

¹³⁰ 192/CCXXX.45–46: ‘intersperse such poetic games among your manifold concerns; the state will find you more productive because of it.’ Lurking here is one of the disticha of Cato: ‘Interpone tuis interdum gaudia curis, Ut possis animo quemuis sufferre laborem’; the distich is repeatedly cited in defense of literary gaming, see Olson, , Literature 93 and elsewhere. In his discussion of recreatio, Olson concludes (111): ‘This evidence reveals a view of recreation which acknowledges a legitimate need for loosening the strain of monastic discipline. In fact, the term ‘recreatio’ in the context of the cloister means “a temporary but intentional relaxation of the normal monastic regime of silence, prayer, work and seclusion,”’ citing Knowles, David, The Religious Orders in England (Cambridge 1948–59) II 245. His discussion of ‘Monastic recreatio’ (109–14) reveals how unusual Baudri's theories are for this time and context.Google Scholar

¹³¹ See Moller, Herbert, ‘The Social Causation of the Courtly Love Complex,’ Comparative Studies of Society and History 1 (1958–59) 137–63; Köhler, Erich, ‘Observations historiques et sociologiques sur la poésie des troubadours,’ Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 7 (1964) 27–51; and the review by Boase, , Origin 89–93. A counterargument was presented by Peters, Ursula, ‘Niederes Rittertum oder hoher Adel? Zu Erich Köhlers historisch-soziologischer Deutung der altprovenzalischen und mittelhochdeutschen Minnelyrik,’ Euphorion 67 (1973) 244–60; and useful modifications of his theories have been made by Liebertz-Grün, Ursula, Zur Soziologie des ‘amour courtois’: Umrisse der Forschung (Heidelberg 1977).Google Scholar

¹³² See Morris, Colin, The Discovery of the Individual, 1050–1200 (London 1972); and Hanning, Robert, The Individual in Twelfth-Century Romance (New Haven 1977).Google Scholar

¹³³ The Ovidian tendencies of some of the more famous poets of this period are well known; see Williams, , ‘Godfrey’ 39: ‘Godfrey seems to have been even more deeply indebted to Ovid than he was to Virgil.’ Godfrey writes a letter-poem to Hugh (Rainard), Bishop of Langres (1065–85), who had ‘a penchant for light and spicy verse,’ and to Ingelrann, Archdeacon of Soissons (1077–1098), who indulged in ‘nenia, risus iners, iocus et sine pondere uerba’ (Williams 37 and 33). Baudri praises Hildebert of Le Mans (87/CXLIX.15): ‘Doctiloquus Naso non nunc urbanior esset.’ See also Delbouille, Maurice, ‘Un mystérieux ami de Marbode: le “redoutable poète” Gautier,’ Moyen Age 57 (1951) 205–40. To this group must be added those poets, like Baudri's obscure Galo, whose works have not been identified or even transmitted. Offermann's study assembles much useful data on this question.Google Scholar