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Games People Played: Drama and Ritual as Propaganda in Medieval Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

D. A. Bullough
D. A. Bullough
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Extract

On 6 January 1378 King Charles V of France took his place in the centre of the top table at a banquet given in honour of a distinguished guest, his uncle the Emperor Charles IV. The setting in the Palais de la Cité, the company and the menu were appropriately sumptuous. Resplendent hangings covered the wall behind the marble table: the noblest guests sat at five large tables, each raised on its own platform; and divided from them by barriers were other tables with seats for more than 800 knights. The entire company was treated to three elaborate courses, each of ten dishes. Then, from its previous place of concealment at the end of the hall, a massive model of a ship emerged carrying a crowd of armed warriors, among them persons identifiable by their arms as Godfrey of Bouillon and other leaders of the First Crusade, together with Peter the Hermit, looking—we are told—as much like the descriptions of him in the chronicles as possible. Propelled smoothly along the floor by men concealed within, it crossed in front of the top table and was then turned round to face towards the centre. An even more massive structure was next brought forward—this time representing the city of Jerusalem, complete with battlemented walls and towers defended by men dressed as Saracen warriors, with the Temple high in the middle and rising still higher above it a tower on which was another figure in Saracen dress ‘crying the Law’ in Arabic. The Crusaders then descended from the ship and attacked the city with scaling ladders, from which some were made to fall off, until finally the knights entered the city, tossed the unfortunate defenders over the walls and raised in triumph the banners they had brought with them: after which the dinner finished.

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Research Article
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Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 24 , January 1974 , pp. 97 - 122
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Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1974

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References

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23 Steger, , op. cit., pp. 210–12Google Scholar, the ‘Harding-Bible’ page reproduced pl. 20. For doubts about the supposed significance of the earlier representations of David in Western art see Bullough, ‘Imagines regum’ (above, n. 7).

24 Regularis Concordia, ed. Symons, T. (Edinburgh-London, 1953), esp. PP. 49–51Google Scholar; and various contributions to the ‘Regularis Concordia Millennium’ Conference, Leicester, 1970, to be published as Tenth-Century Studies, ed. Parsons, D. (Chichester, ?1974)Google Scholar.

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36 Young, , op. cit., ii, pp. 192–93Google Scholar; Basel MS. B. IV 26 (s. xiv; ?German) inc. Leta dei loeto meretrix synagogo valeto; Donovan, R. B., The Liturgical Drama in Medieval Spain (Toronto, 1958), pp. 165–67Google Scholar. See also Weber, P., Geistliches Schauspiel und Kirchliche Kunst (Stuttgart, 1894), pp. 24–30, 58–81Google Scholar.

37 Standard edition by Meyer, W., Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur mittellateinischen Rythmik, i (Berlin, 1905), pp. 150–70)Google Scholar; an easily accessible text in Young, , op. cit., ii, pp. 371–87Google Scholar. For the manuscript, Munich elm. 19411 (predominantly a collection of letters and other texts concerning the recent history of the Empire) see Wattenbach, W. in Neues Archiv, xvii (1892), pp. 33–47Google Scholar.

38 Ed. by Sackur, E. as Epistola Adsonis ad Gerbergam reginam de ortu el tempore Anti-Christo in Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen (Halle, 1898), pp. 104–13Google Scholar.

39 Hauck, , art. cit., (n. 21), pp. 17Google Scholar f.; Gallicanus VIII, IX 2 (ed. cit., pp. 125, 127); Gesta Ottonis, lines 243–46, (ed. cit., p. 238); Schütze-Pflugk, , op. cit., pp. 46 fGoogle Scholar.

40 See now Classen, P., Gerhoch von Reichersberg (Wiesbaden, 1960), pp. 233 fGoogle Scholar. with references to previous literature and (p. 224 n. 47) a list of German poems of the period on the subject of Antichrist. Cf. Young, , op. cit., ii, pp. 392–93, 524–25Google Scholar.

41 Hauck, , art. cit., pp. 21–23Google Scholar. According to Munz, P., Frederick Barbarossa (London, 1969), p. 377 n. lGoogle Scholar, ‘Hauck's view is now widely accepted’: but compare Classen, , op. cit., p. 224 n. 46Google Scholar. Gesta Friderici I. Imperatoris, II 1—7 (ed. Waitz, G. and Simson, B. v. [Hanover, 1912] pp. 102–10)Google Scholar cover March-October 1152.

42 So I infer from Katzenellenbogen, A., Allegories of the Virtues and Vices in Medieval Art (Studies of the Warburg Institute, 10; London, 1939), pp. 27 ffGoogle Scholar.

43 Typical of the attempts to resolve the apparent contradictions between the two works are Spörl, J., Grundformen hochmittelalterlicher Geschichtsanschauung (Berlin, 1937), pp. 47–50Google Scholar and Grill, L., ‘Bildung u. Wissenschaft im Leben Ottos von Freising’, Analecta sacri ordinis Cisterciensis, xiv (1958), pp. 313—21Google Scholar; cf. Munz, , Frederick Barbarossa, p. 133 n. 1Google Scholar, where other literature is briefly characterized. The link between the Ludus and Chronica sive Historia de duabus civitatibus, viii I, ed. Hofmeister, A. (Hanover, 1912), p. 393Google Scholar, was already noted by Meyer, , op. cit., i, p. 142Google Scholar. A letter of 1155–56 preserved on a later folio of clm. 19411 (fo. 91v) shows the bishop inviting the abbot of Tegernsee and two of his community to come to him to give advice and help: Weissthanner, A., ‘Regesten… Bischofs Otto I’, Analecta, cit., p. 204 (nr. 151)Google Scholar.

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45 Zardo, A., Albertino Mussato (Padua, 1884)Google Scholar, with the corrections and additions in Hyde, J. K., Padua in the Age of Dante (Manchester, 1966), pp. 165–68, 295–99Google Scholar; Mussato, , Ecerinide, ed. Padrin, L. (Bologna, 1900)Google Scholar; Mussato, , De gestis Italicorum post Henricum VII Caesarem in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed. Muratori, L., X (Milan, 1727), cols. 687–88Google Scholar.

46 References to the earliest Paduan vernacular writing in Hyde, , op. cit., pp. 298 f.Google Scholar; for a supposed tradition of popolaresco comedy, known now mainly from the sixteenth-century mariazi see Mortier, A., Ruzzante (1502–44), un dramaturge populaire de la Renaissance italienne, 2 vols. (Paris, 1925–1926), iGoogle Scholar, passim and Lovarini, E., Studi sul Ruzzante e la letteratura pavana, ed.Folena, G. (Padua, 1965)Google Scholar.

47 Combes, A., Jean de Montreuil et la Chancelier Gerson (Paris, 1942)Google Scholar; Vansteenberghe, E., ‘Gerson à Bruges’, Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, xxxi (1935) PP. 5–52Google Scholar; Gerson, J., Doctrina pro pueris ecclesiae Parisiensis in Opera Omnia, ed. Du Pin, E. (Antwerp, 1706), iv, p. 718Google Scholar.

48 Die Lieder Walthers von der Vogelweide, ed. Maurer, F., 3rd ed. i (Berlin, 1967)Google Scholar, and for the context of some of the political songs see e.g. Van Cleve, T. C., The Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Immutator mundi (Oxford, 1972), pp. 32, 77, 84, 99 etc.Google Scholar; Guy, H., Essai sur la vie et les oeuvres litteraires de la [sic] de la Halle (Paris, 1898), esp. pt. 1 ch. 5 and pt. 2 ch. 7Google Scholar, more recent bibliography conveniently in Marshall, J. H., The Chansons of Adam de la Halle (Manchester, 1971), pp. 23–24Google Scholar.

49 Presumably appearing ‘on stage’ here for the first time, the hunt scene subsequently became a topos of the art-theatre, to be brilliantly apotheosized in the ‘Royal Hunt and Storm’ scene of Berlioz's Les Troyens.

50 Iorga, N., Philippe de Mézières, 1327–1405, et la croisade au XIVc siècle (Bibl. de l'École des Hautes Éitudes, ex; Paris, 1896) remains the standard biographyGoogle Scholar; additional details in Coopland, G. W. (ed.), Le Songe du vieil pélerin (Cambridge, 1969), i, pp. 1–7Google Scholar. The texts relating to the Feast of the Presentation are in Young, , op. cit., ii, pp. 472–79Google Scholar, 227–42—the source of a bibliographical curiosity entitled Philippe de Mézières' description of the Festum Presentations Beatae Mariae. Translated from the Latin and introduced by an essay on the Birth of Modern Acting by Albert B. Weiner (New Haven, 1958)Google Scholar. The prose Estoire de Griseldis of 1384–89 lias apparently been edited by B. M. Craig (c. 1954), the verse Mystère de Griseldis by Glomeau, M. A. (Paris, 1923)Google Scholar and also by B. M. Craig, but I have seen none of these and have been compelled to rely on the summary in Frank, G., Medieval French Drama (Oxford, 1954), pp. 156–60Google Scholar; for the authorship of the play see Frank, in Modern Language Notes, li (1936), pp. 217–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The full text of the Epistre (in four books, the last of which contains the recommendation to read le cronique autentique) in a very elegant—presumably Parisian—manuscript of 1395, British Museum, MS. Royal 20 B. VI, is still unpublished: but see now Palmer, J. J. N., England, France and Christendom (London, 1972), pp. 186–91, 243 and pi. 1Google Scholar.

51 McKenzie, K., Antonio Pucci: le Noie (Princeton-Paris 1931), introductionGoogle Scholar; Speight, K., ‘Vox Populi in Antonio Pucci’, Italian Studies presented to E. R. Vincent, ed. Brand, C. P. et al. (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 76–91Google Scholar.

52 Guenée, G. and Lehoux, F., Les Entrées royales Françoises de 1328 à 1515 pp. 13 f., 56–58Google Scholar (where, however, the contemporary descriptions of the entrée of 1380 do not contain any reference to theatrical performances); de Roye, Jean, cited Huizinga, Waning of the Middle Ages (ed. of 1965), p. 300Google Scholar.

53 Mortier and Lovarini, op. cit. (n. 45); Cozzi, G. in Renaissance Venice, ed. Hale, J. R. (London, 1973), pp. 330–31Google Scholar.

54 Hüther, J., Die monarchische Ideologic in den französischen Römerdramen des 16. u. 17. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1966), espGoogle Scholar. the discussion of Muret's Caesar, pp. 9–22: but for more penetrating account of Gamie r see Jendorf, G., Robert Gamier and the themes of political tragedy in the sixteenth century (Cambridge, 1969)Google Scholar; Watson, A., Juan de la Cueva and the Portuguese Succession (London, 1971)Google Scholar, to which Prof. R. B. Tate drew my attention.

55 Much of the reading for this paper was done when I was enjoying the support of a N.A.T.O. Fellowship awarded for the study of ‘The cultural unity of the West: the Early Medieval basis’. I am grateful to the Appointing Committee and, more especially, to Mr John Vernon of the Political Department of N.A.T.O., Brussels, for their generous help and encouragement.