Villon’s Testament is a satirical will in which a first-person narrator, purportedly on his death bed, leaves a series of burlesque bequests, among them many specimens of Villon’s own lyric poetry, intended to punish or reward people he has known. Most critical studies of the Testament adopt one of two main approaches. One, which we might call 'life-based', assumes that a text is a record of its author’s experience, to be understood in relation to the real-world context in which it was composed. 'Life-based' studies privilege the Testament’s relationship to historical contexts, to Villon’s life - insofar as this can be delineated from the very limited documentary evidence - or to the Paris of the late 1450s and early 1460s. The other, which we might call 'art-based', assumes that a text and its meanings are products of linguistic and aesthetic conventions, and can be understood only in relation to these. 'Art-based' analysis concentrates upon the ways in which the Testament both uses and disrupts various kinds of conventions: those of the legal will, or of different poetic genres, or of proverbial language. The range of interpretations of Villon’s best-known work is hardly surprising, for particular features of the Testament seem to appeal to one or other of these types of reading. It is crucial to recognize, however, that the opposition between 'life-based' and 'art-based' approaches is a false one. The two are in no sense mutually exclusive: adherents of the former regard art as a product of experience, while adherents of the latter regard experience as constructed through art. Indeed, neither view can be upheld in pure form. No text can be a pure record of fact, as its language always bears traces of other texts, whether literary or non-literary; nor can a text consist of pure language, for it is always the product of a certain author (whether individual or collective, identifiable or anonymous) in a certain context. In the case of the Testament, different aspects of its content and form superficially elicit either 'life-based' or 'art-based' readings, but prove on closer examination to undermine any notion that the two are opposed.

French was the most influential vernacular literature of the European Middle Ages. Early texts such as the Chanson de Roland, the Old French Tristan romances, the prose Lancelot, and the Roman de la rose were widely translated into other European languages and had an enormous impact on other vernacular traditions; later writers such as Guillaume de Machaut, Christine de Pizan, or Charles d'Orléans, had an international readership and saw themselves as working in an international context. The prestige and dissemination of French were such that writers whose mother tongue was not French wrote major texts in French (in Italy Brunetto Latini and Marco Polo, in England John Gower); even in instances where robust national traditions emerged in the wake of major authors such as Dante and Petrarch in Italy, or Chaucer in England, they did so in part at least by emulating French models.

The literary production to which this Companion is devoted dates c. 1100-1500, but there is evidence the tradition began earlier. The earliest surviving written French is found in the Serments de Strasbourg (842), a record of oaths supposedly taken by two of Charlemagne’s grandsons one of whom swears in French, the other in German. The equally brief Séquence de Sainte Eulalie (c.878), the fragmentary chanson de geste Gormont et Isembart and the Vie de St Léger (both eleventh century), suggest French was already being used sporadically for written texts before 1100, and that the Serments de Strasbourg were not therefore a flash-in-the-pan. The general lack of surviving evidence and the undoubted loss of many texts, especially from the early Middle Ages, mean that it is not always possible to delineate this production precisely.

Though there are evident differences between medieval and modern notions of marriage and sexuality, there is really no way to contrast a set of beliefs labelled 'modern' with another called 'medieval'. Not only do the concepts themselves evolve through time within broad historical periods, but the way that they are understood can differ markedly from one community or individual to another. Most of the texts that are usually cited by historians as evidence of medieval thought are homilies and penitentials, theological treatises and records of legal proceedings, texts that shine with the lustre of authenticity and truth and may appear to be speaking in a unified voice but were often inspired by very particular concerns. They were also composed, almost exclusively, by an elite group of unmarried men whose job it was to defend church thought and local practice. The fact that much of the extant vernacular literature of the period belies and contradicts these texts indicates that even if church policy denigrated all sexual expression when divorced from reproduction, such commandments were probably not foremost in people’s minds as they went about their daily lives. I will therefore begin this chapter by looking at some of the structures within which marriage and sexuality were configured in the Middle Ages, church doctrine being one amongst them, then look at a selection of literary texts that offer typical but also surprising portraits of how that material was interpreted, undermined, twisted, and abused.

The distinction between clergy and laity in the Middle Ages has traditionally provided a convenient description of a social divide that influenced literary production in this period. As we shall see, this distinction encompasses not only medieval social differences but also the ideological structures built upon them. Yet, for all that, the clerical/lay divide is by no means reducible to a set of mutually exclusive terms and, in this respect, poses certain challenges for modern readers of medieval texts that will be explored in what follows.

While attempting to give a sense of the scope and import of scholarly debate surrounding the interaction between clerical and lay in medieval French literature - in itself a vast topic - this chapter will focus particularly on religious and didactic literature, and will concentrate on the eleventh and twelfth centuries. I will begin by exploring the difference between clergy and laity and the ways this social division might affect vernacular literature. Focusing on the Vie de saint Alexis, the chapter will then consider how lay and clerical concerns might operate in religious literature. The final section will look at the illuminations to the Vie in the St Albans Psalter - a sequence of miniatures probably intended for the English recluse Christina of Markyate - with a view to exploring questions of gender and response.

It may seem strange to yoke the concepts of genre and parody to that of spectacle. Prevailing definitions of genre for medieval French literature are based on formand style as much as (or even more than) content; alternatives to the concept of genre also identify expression, or rather 'register' as Zumthor terms it (see Introduction), as differentiating between various kinds of literary production. Parody is typically seen as exaggerating, distorting, or inverting other texts, and since the comic tales (diversely labelled contes, fabliaux, and nouvelles, and the one-off chantefable of Aucassin et Nicolette) that are discussed in this chapter have often been seen as 'parodic' of other works or genres, critics have paid especially close attention to their formal and stylistic traits. Indeed, some of the best criticism on the work that I shall be centrally concerned with, Aucassin et Nicolette, analyses the role within it of discourse, and the fabliaux have been brilliantly illumined from this angle too. And yet discussions of genre, parody, and the comic tale have always drawn heavily on terms such as 'perspective' and 'distance' that imply a visual field. Witness for example Caroline Jewers’s statement about Aucassin: 'its deviation from the form of romance allows for a privileged vantage point from which to view convention and constitutes another form of generic distance from the body of texts it comically reflects'. In this chapter I propose to develop this visual image, but turn it around. That is, instead of envisaging a text such as Aucassin as a vantage point from which to view other things, I will consider it as engineering positions from which it itself is to be viewed. If we simply adopt the perspectives it creates for us we risk being oblivious to how they were created. However, if we analyse them we glean, among other advantages, a fresh purchase on the nature of genre and parody in medieval French literature.

The Châtelain de Couci was one of the best-known trouvères, this being the term for lyric poets from the late twelfth through to the end of the thirteenth century. Although they composed in a variety of genres (some drawn from popular song), they are best known for their grands chants courtois, songs of unrequited fine amour ('pure love'), modelled on the Occitan troubadour lyric, and addressed to a haughty noble lady. These were originally performed to music, which is often transmitted in the manuscript anthologies that preserve them, known as chansonniers.

Unusually for a late twelfth- or thirteenth-century French author, we do know something about the Châtelain. Gui, castellan of Couci from at least 1186, was like most contemporary trouvères a high-ranking noble (which may account for why we can identify proportionally more trouvères than other twelfth-century writers); his death on the Fourth Crusade in 1203 is chronicled by Villehardouin’s Conquête de Constantinople. Do we have, then, in his lyrics, a body of texts attributable with some certainty to a named and identifiable author, whom we can situate in time and space? And should we thereby think about them differently from the majority of contemporary texts, which are either anonymous or attributed to a name we cannot identify, particularly since courtly lyrics are written in the first person and purport to speak sincerely of the subject’s experience of love? Finally, should these questions matter to the modern reader?

This Appendix seeks to give a brief critical guide to reference works and pedagogical tools for the Old and Middle French language. The editorial standards of websites may be less rigorous than those of the published sources cited, and the sites themselves may not be permanent.

Dictionaries

Research dictionaries

The best dictionary for the early Old French period (i.e. to c.1300) is the multivolume Altfranzö siches Wörterbuch (often referred to as Tobler/ Lommatzsch or TL). TL glosses words in German, offering extensive examples and cross-referencing to other dictionaries, particularly Godefroy and FEW (see below). The older multivolume dictionary by Godefroy is useful for both the Old and Middle French period: it glosses in French and has two alphabetical sequences, the second, which extends and supplements the first, beginning in volume 8. Though more specialized in some respects, the Anglo- Norman Dictionary (AND), which glosses in English, is frequently invaluable, though it is in the course of major revision.

The Song of Roland functions as what Pierre Nora terms a lieu de mémoire: 'any significant entity, whether material or non-material in nature, which by dint of human will or the work of time has become a symbolic element of the memorial heritage of any community (in this case, the French community)'. Nineteenth-century antiquarians seeking a national epic which would be to France what the Iliad was to Greece - at once a glorious military legend, an exposition of core ethical values and a great literary production from its finest political and cultural moment - directed their energies to discovering a Song of Roland. Since then the Roland has been invoked in wartime to symbolize and galvanize French resistance; during the siege of Paris in 1870 the great medievalist Gaston Paris lectured at the Collège de France on 'La Chanson de Roland et la nationalité française', and Raoul Mortier published clandestinely all the extant French Roland versions under the Occupation in 1940-4. Even to those who have not read it, the Roland epitomizes 'une certaine idée de la France', the evocative phrase with which de Gaulle characterized the roots of his political outlook and which has been borrowed ever since (not always without irony) to express patriotic attachment to a romantic conception of France. The poem’s heroes - combative, passionate, pious, unwavering in their commitment to France dulce, la bele - personify virtues foundational to French collective identity. Histories of French literature devote substantial attention to the Roland, and studies of medieval French (including the present volume) give pride of place to what is generally considered the first masterpiece in the French tongue and foundation stone of the world’s foremost tradition of belles-lettres.

The aim of this section dealing with historical themes is to consider how medieval French texts invite historical or historicizing readings and in this chapter the focus will be on feudalism and kingship. Indeed, the question of what kind of histories can be written from the literary evidence seems especially acute when we look to representations of political and social structures. After all, a society’s sense of its preoccupations does not invariably offer a secure guide to actual practices. Another difficulty with medieval French texts, especially those dating from the earlier period (on which this chapter will focus), is that their presentation of events is very often either partial or critical. Texts do not merely advance claims or accounts of events, they also question the ways in which such claims are made and legitimized.

Although they are often dealt with as separate themes, feudalism and kingship are both fundamental to conceptions of French identity, whether in relation to its myths of class structure, state formation, or legal and political institutions. This is especially true where the principles underpinning the two systems are seen to be in conflict. Terms associated with feudalism appear frequently in literary works, providing a language for exploring relations between the rights and dues owing to high-status individuals and for mapping out the consequences of actions in a dramatically compelling manner. Literary treatment of kings provides insight into how collective identities are founded and shaped, into the strains and conflicts created by the desire for, or imposition of, unity. One central example is the term franc, which, in that it means both 'Frankish' and 'free-born', combines both status and ethnicity.

On 25 November 1392, Eustache Deschamps, indefatigable versifier, completed what he calls an Art de dictier - a treatise on the art of composing verse. It may have been intended for Louis, duke of Orléans, and as such directed primarily at the amateur, courtly, poet rather than at the sort of professional who frequented what are called Puys d'amour (poetic competitions, often for hugely elaborate serventois expressing devoted service to the Virgin rather than secular love poems); Deschamps does not, he says, intend to prescribe rules for such verse forms, because 'it has not been the custom for noble men to compose [them]' (82). This, the earliest known treatise in French on the subject, starts rather ponderously with a discussion of the seven liberal arts, and comes finally to the seventh, music, 'the medicine of the seven arts' (61); it is on this last section that I want to concentrate.

Deschamps is distinctly convoluted. There are, he says, two sorts of music, the artificiele and the naturele (60). Musique artificiele - 'artificial' because it demands 'art' - need not detain us: it embraces the music of instruments and the music of song, and it requires the trained ability to understand, if not read, music. What is interesting here is what Deschamps calls musique naturele, 'an oral music producing words in metre' (63). By contrast with artificial music, it cannot in essence be taught, or rather, it cannot be taught to anyone who is not naturally gifted. Certainly, anyone can learn the mechanics of verse - how to produce a competent ballade or a decent rondeau - but natural music stems from innate ability, and, spontaneously, from inspiration: from love, for instance, 'amorous desire in the praise of women' (63).

The quest for the holy grail, the story of Merlin, the adventures of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, the love affair of Lancelot and Queen Guenevere - these are familiar stories that have their first sustained development in the early thirteenth-century Old French Vulgate cycle, also known as the Lancelot-Grail cycle or the Pseudo-Map cycle. The Vulgate is a compilation of five prose romances composed between 1220 and 1240. Together the five texts recount a story that unfolds across generations, but the texts were not composed in chronological sequence. The oldest part of the compilation and its central text is the Lancelot en prose, also known as the Lancelot Proper, which recounts the story of Lancelot’s birth and education by the Lady of the Lake, his arrival at King Arthur’s court, his early feats of chivalry, then his love affair with Guenevere, his many adventures and those of Arthur’s other knights. The Lancelot comprises roughly half of the Vulgate and it is the centre around which the cycle grew. In the decade and a half following its composition, four other narratives were added to the Lancelot: La Queste del saint graal continues the story of Arthur’s knights in the quest for the grail and La Mort le roi Artu recounts the destruction of Arthur’s kingdom after the grail quest. Each romance refers back to events narrated in the Lancelot, but each is also a complete, independent romance. Two romances were also added to the beginning of the Lancelot to recount the early history of the grail (L'Estoire del saint graal) and the early history of Arthur’s kingdom (L'Estoire de Merlin); these two texts contain prophecies or references to events recounted in the stories that follow chronologically, but they too may stand alone as independent narratives.

If Lancelot and the grail are names that anyone familiar with Arthurian literature recognizes without hesitation, the same cannot be said for the author who stands behind their invention. Yet asked to identify the most important romancer of the Middle Ages, any connoisseur, medieval or modern, would likely name Chrétien de Troyes, the writer who stepped beyond antique romances to offer models that energized and redirected romance from the twelfth century on, first in verse, later in prose. Through allusions and adaptations, translations, amplifications, parodies, and prosifications, Chrétien’s five romances spawned a huge variety of offspring that span medieval Europe and spin anew in modern forms and media.

What do we know about the author 'Crestïens de Troies', as he identifies himself in his first romance, Erec et Enide (9)? Though historical identification eludes us, a number of possibilites emerge in the romances themselves. Similarities between the coronation scene at the end of Erec and Henry II’s court at Nantes (Christmas 1169), when his son Geoffrey was recognized as the future duke of Brittany, suggest that Chrétien may have been associated with the Anglo-Norman court at that stage of his career. Such a displacement might explain why the romancer adds a place name to his signature in Erec, thereafter simply signing 'Crestïens' in prologue or epilogue. Chrétien names two patrons, Marie de Champagne (wife of Henry the Liberal, count of Champagne) and Philippe d'Alsace, count of Flanders: they place him, c. 1160s-1191, at two important political and cultural centres of northern France, located along significant commercial axes connecting northern and southern Europe, England, and the Continent.

'Speak firmly and in an orderly rhythm.' 'Make appropriate gestures … manifesting sorrow by falling down on the ground … or showing joy through the face.' These were the instructions given to people playing the first man and woman in the biblical Jeu d'Adam (late twelfth century). Talking in another voice and mimicking another person were the key body languages to master, the skills necessary to acting before others. They defined a practice that did not correspond to any formal conception of genre and extended far beyond what we recognize as theatre today. In a world where culture was transacted orally as much as through hand-written texts or manuscripts and the earliest printed books, such theatrical action informed the way texts were read aloud, the styles of celebrating religious and political occasions, as well as physical play, noise-making. As Paul Zumthor began to argue in the late 1960s, such action animated so many different forms of communication and expression that it is more telling to ask what was not characterized theatrically than to identify what was theatre.

The Parisian schoolman, Hugh of St Victor (died 1141) captured this array of activity when he described in a Latin treatise the 'science called theatrics'. 'Epics were presented either by recitals or by acting out dramatic roles or using masks or puppets; choral processions and dances were held in the porches. In gymnasia, they wrestled, at banquets they made music with songs and instruments. In the temples they sang the praises of God.' Hugh adapted a model that had come from imperial Rome to describe the rituals, sports, and verbal fictions of public life in twelfth-century Europe. He gives us a sense of the many different sites for theatrical action, and the people implicated.

Composed soon after the death of Guillaume de Machaut in 1377, Eustache Deschamps’s lament attests to the tremendous legacy already afforded the master at the end of his life. As the author of over 400 poems, 117 songs, 23 motets, 13 dits, and the first full Mass cycle, the Machaut celebrated by Deschamps assumes legendary proportions as the master of lovers, knights, and ladies; musicians, poets, clerics, and philosophers. Subsequent generations rarely wavered in their celebration of Machaut. In the realm of music, Machaut is universally recognized as the last of the great poet-composers, the greatest practitioner of the musical style known as ars nova (characterized principally by a freer attitude towards rhythm than had been the case previously), the master of polyphony, and the first composer of a complete Mass. In literature, he is regarded as no less than the pater familias of French poetry. From René d'Anjou who considered Machaut second only to Ovid to Daniel Poirion who recognized him as a precursor of Malherbe, Machaut’s legacy was to have masterfully united the auctor of classical literature and the vernacular author, music and poetry, the clerkly and the courtly world.