The
music heard on these records is the product of an age which can be
fairly described as the high point of medieval culture in France. It is a
time which, both in the sphere of literature and the arts and on the
social and economic fronts, saw the consolidation of the gains made
during the flowering of what has been justifiably referred to as the
"twelfth-century renaissance". In addition to its remarkable creative
vitality (which finds expression in masterpieces such as the Chanson de Roland, in the elaboration of the code of courtly love or fine amor,
in the works of Peter Abelard and Chrétien de Troyes, and in the
building of cathedrals such as Noyon, Laon, Senlis and Notre-Dame de
Paris), the twelfth century saw advances in agricultural techniques and a
gradual expansion in trade which meant that the country as a whole
began to enjoy a measure of prosperity. The terrible famines which had
once been such a regular and terrible feature of life were consequently
becoming a distant memory. At the same time, this general improvement in
living standards was accompanied by a marked increase in the
disparities between the haves and the have-nots, of which the chief
beneficiaries were undoubtedly the landed aristocracy and the
dignitaries of the Church. As their power grew, so did their influence
as cultural arbiters, and the "cour" or retinue of a noble or of a
powerful prelate soon became the focus for artistic activity. In these
self-consciously "civilized" circles there developed a lifestyle and an
intellectual awareness which set them very clearly apart from the rest
of society. This growing sophistication of court life is without doubt
one of the most significant features of the twelfth century and its most
important cultural legacy to the "gothic era".
The intellectual
climate prevailing in the courts of the late twelfth and thirteenth
centuries is therefore very different from that of a hundred years
before. One of the results of this shift in taste and mental attitudes
is that the chansons de geste, which, with their glorification of
chivalry, reflect what is very much a man's world, give way to a more
refined and psychologically more subtle exploration of individual human
relationships and, more particularly, the relationship between the
sexes. Troubadour poetry had by this time penetrated educated circles in
northern France, and the doctrine of fine amor had become generally widespread. In the wake of this conversion to "courtliness" a number of arts d'aimer
(arts of love) were written, the most successful — from the point
of view of popularity as well as artistic merit — being the Roman de la Rose.
Started about 1225 by Guillaume de Lorris, this monumental work
(continued in a somewhat different vein some forty years later by Jean
de Meung) was to have a profound effect on all subsequent lyric poetry.
The work of Guillaume de Machaut, for example, a century later, is shot
through with stylistic and conceptual reminiscences of the Roman de la Rose,
What is more, Machaut's use of allegorical abstractions (Love,
Jealousy, Envy, Shame, etc.) which by then had become commonplace, far
from stifling his genius (as has sometimes been alleged), allows him to
express a whole gamut of emotions and to develop as subtly as in a
Renaissance sonnet the conflicting emotions of melancholy and joy, hope
and anguish, which are an essential part of the courtly lover's lot. But
Machaut's poems do much more than simply relate his amorous adventures,
real or imagined. In them love is almost synonymous with life itself:
to feel the pangs of love is to feel the pain of being, to know its joys
is to know the joys of life.
It would be a mistake, however, to
focus one's attention on lyric poetry to the exclusion of all other
genres. Alongside, and in marked contrast to, the exquisite works
inspired by the doctrine of fine amor, there exists a body of
material of a very different complexion. To present the period solely in
terms of the courtly ethic is to give, therefore, a rather distorted
picture. The thirteenth century also saw the development of the fabliau,
a short tale in verse usually dealing with the ups and downs of
everyday life and which takes for granted the fickleness of women, the
corruption of the clergy and the imperfections of society in general.
With its mocking tone and bawdy humour, the fabliau (of which
some 150 or so have survived) is sometimes thought of as being the
practical, down-to-earth "bourgeois" reaction to the aristocratic
retreat from reality exemplified by the courtly ideal. Loyalty, service
and honour are conspicuously absent from the world of the fabliau,
in which woman appears to be more of a slut than a "dame". It would
seem, however, that the same aristocratic public enjoyed both types of
work, finding nothing very shocking in the often crude humour of the fabliau.
The
authors of these bawdy tales are more concerned with entertainment than
instruction and they rarely allow their irreverence to spill over into
anything resembling social comment, even if their cynical view of life
implies a rejection of courtly values. But other works of the same
period do have a distinctly iconoclastic flavour about them. One need
only read the late thirteenth-century reworkings of the earlier stories
about Renard the Fox to find examples of this. The original tales (the
first stories in French about the mischievous fox were written by Pierre
de Saint-Cloud around 1175) of how Renard cleverly outwits Ysengrin the
Wolf, Noble the Lion and company owed their success to the public's
admiration for the pure cheek of this joyfully amoral fox who
continually proves more than a match for his more honest but pedestrian
companions. Although no political or moral conclusions can be drawn from
these early stories, Renard's misdeeds were to provide a framework for
longer, didactic works in which social satire — and occasionally pretty
ferocious satire at that — predominates. The poet Rutebeuf will make use
of this material in his Renart le Bestourné (about 1260) to
criticize the vices of the mendicant friars and their exaggerated
influence over the conduct of affairs of state. Similar themes and
targets are also to be found in works such as the anonymous Couronnement de Renart,
in which the court of the Count of Flanders provides the back-cloth for
the author's venomous attack on the religious orders. The court is
described as being under the thumb of the monks, who are motivated by
Calumny, Envy and Pride. In Renart le Nouvel, written about 1290
by Jacquemart Gellée, Renard comes to personify evil itself, triumphing
over the rest of humanity through inordinate pride and scheming
ambition. In writing his Roman de Fauvel (1310-1314), Gervais du
Bus is therefore working to a popular and well-tried formula. He does
make something of a departure from tradition by making a horse, Fauvel,
his hero rather than continuing to use the fox as his symbol for
immorality, but otherwise the work is a vehicle for the familiar
recriminations about the extravagances and the corruption of the
"establishment". The horse derives its name both from its colour — fauve
(fawn) was thought to symbolize hypocrisy — and from the initials of
the vices the author considered most prevalent at court, namely
Flattery, Avarice, Vileness, Variety (i.e. inconstancy), Envy and
Cowardice (Lâcheté in French). Yet, although the work is a vicious
attack on everything the court stands for, it would be wrong to see it
as being in any way revolutionary. Gervais du Bus's standpoint is that
of a conservative moralist whose anger is directed at all those who have
dared to upset the divinely ordained nature of things by their
shameless pursuit of pleasure. As such his work faithfully reflects the
misgivings felt in scholarly circles at the way society was going. It is
no accident that the acrimonious Gervais du Bus was a cleric: implicit
in his hard-hitting review of society's ills is a call to return to a
more simple and dignified way of life.
In this he was, of course,
by no means alone. Many shared his distaste for the increasingly
frivolous lives the nobility were leading at a time when, for the
majority of the population, life was becoming more and more difficult
and uncertain. For by the beginning of the fourteenth century the
country was entering a phase of both economic stagnation and political
insecurity. For one thing, with a population of something like 15
millions, France was simply unable to feed itself. This fact alone was
enough to undermine the country's stability, but the situation was soon
to be made worse by political incompetence and the horrors of widespread
disease. However, the start of what has become known as the Hundred
Years War (1337-1453) was welcomed by many French nobles who, blissfully
ignorant of political realities, saw in it an opportunity to put their
valour to the test. For this reason there is an air of unreality about
the atmosphere under kings Philip VI and John the Good. Certainly, the
deepening gloom in the country at large was not reflected in the royal
entourage, which busied itself more than ever with the minutiae of
courtly etiquette. Prestige and grandeur were now the order of the day.
Perhaps the aristocracy, unsure of its place in a changing society and
feeling threatened by the growing power of the bourgeoisie, felt the
need to reassure itself, using for the purpose ostentatious displays of
splendour and military prowess. This recklessness inevitably placed a
heavy burden on the royal exchequer. When Charles V came to the throne
in 1364 he found a country faced not only with the problems of
recovering from the plague of 1348 (The Black Death) but also with the
need to repel the English invasion at a time of growing discontent
caused by the hardship being felt by large sections of the population.
By his careful policies he did much to restore morale, but the confident
optimism of the past had been shattered. The new king was a
serious-minded man, less flamboyant perhaps than his immediate
predecessors, but with a great deal more political acumen. While his
court could on occasion be gay and carefree, the gravity of the
situation in the country together with Charles's own personal
inclinations meant that it was necessarily more sober and dignified than
had once been the case. Not that there was anything austere about it.
Charles V enjoyed good living and made a point of rebuilding and
redecorating the various royal residences. But it was only on rather
special occasions that the court was allowed to parade all its finery.
Although contemporaries enthused about the splendour of Charles V's
court, it seems that such magnificent occasions were rare and were often
staged with the ulterior motive of impressing foreign princes or
ambassadors. The day-to-day life of the court was much simpler. While
the king liked to surround himself with poets, musicians and artists, he
encouraged them to apply themselves to more exalted subjects. What is
more, he took an active interest in the world of learning, building up
an extensive library and promoting the work of thinkers such as Nicholas
Oresme, the translator of Aristotle. One wonders what the more
traditional type of courtier, pampered, self-centred and intellectually
limited, must have made of having to rub shoulders with eggheads who
were liable to quote Aristotle or Seneca at the drop of a hat.
There
can be little doubt, however, about the fear and incomprehension felt
by the French ruling class on the question of the wave of unrest which
gripped France in the middle of the fourteenth century. In his
invaluable if rather partisan description of events, Froissart is
continually emphasizing the need to suppress peasant uprisings. Paris
itself had been in a state of revolt for some years. In 1358 the
populace had rebelled under the leadership of Etienne Marcel and the
revolt was halted only when its leader was assassinated as he was about
to surrender the city to the king of Navarre, Charles the Bad.
With
his mercurial temperament, Charles the Bad is somehow typical of this
violent age. Apparently intelligent and charming, a persuasive orator
and a generous patron of the arts (Guillaume de Machaut composed for him
both the Jugement du roy de Navarre — a sequel to a work he had written for a previous patron, John of Luxembourg — and the Confort d'ami,
after Charles's arrest for being involved in a plot against the French
throne), he could also be ruthless and cold-blooded. Froissart
approvingly quotes his firmness in putting down peasant revolts and
claims that he slaughtered "more than three thousand" in one day. Even
allowing for the unreliability of Froissart's figures, it is clear that,
however much he might fish in troubled waters himself, Charles would
brook no interference from the lower orders in the running of affairs.
Another
leading figure of the day, Gaston Phebus, possesses characteristics
which are not unlike those of Charles the Bad. He too liked to see
himself as a patron of the arts, gathering around him at Orthez in the
Pyrenees a court which was a byword in its own time for elegance ... and
for loose living. Gaston Phebus, in Froissart's words "le noble et
gentil comte de Foix", was clearly a cultured and courageous man,
capable of inspiring great affection in his associates, but he was also a
violent and unstable one. As well as a treatise on his great passion,
hunting, he is the author of a book of religious meditations, the Livre des Oraisons,
written during a spiritual crisis he underwent after stabbing his only
son to death in a fit of rage. The only explanation one can suggest for
events of this sort — and such behaviour is by no means unusual — is in
the violent tenor of the times. Froissart's account of Gaston Phebus's
role in helping to quash a peasant uprising is revealing in this
connection. Having routed the mob and ordered their troops to kill the
peasants like animals (Froissart's words), Phebus and his fellow nobles
set fire to the town of Meaux, destroying it completely and burning
alive all those of its unfortunate inhabitants who still happened to be
there. Those who escaped the holocaust were cut down "without pity or
mercy" (Froissart's own words again). The "gothic era" which had begun
so auspiciously two centuries before had, by the second half of the
fourteenth century, entered a turbulent and bloody phase which was
apparently having a disastrous effect on individual psyches. But worse
was still to come: the Hundred Years War was to drag on into the
fifteenth century and France would have to wait until Louis XI's reign
to once again know peace and prosperity.
Unknown to themselves,
these great feudal landowners were fast becoming something of an
anachronism. Over the last century and a half there had grown up, based
largely on the prosperous manufacturing towns of northern France, a
distinctive urban culture which is to become increasingly important as
time goes on. This "bourgeois" spirit originates with wealthy merchants,
clerics, lawyers, scribes and doctors and seems to have found the
lively textile city of Arras particularly fertile soil. By the time the
poet Adam de la Halle was living there in the middle of the thirteenth
century, Arras was already over half its present size and was very much a
regional centre, able to vie with Paris itself for the variety of its
cultural life. Adam depended for patronage on the wealthy bourgeoisie of
his native city and provided entertainments to their liking. He was a
versatile and talented poet and musician, able to turn his hand to
chansons, rondeaux and motets in the courtly style as well as longer
works such as the delightful Jeu de Robin et de Marion, a dramatized version of a pastourelle on the usual theme of how a knight tries to seduce the shepherdess Marion away from her rustic lover Robin (similar pastourelles can be heard on these records), and the Jeu de la Feuillée,
a satirical review of Arras society interspersed with supernatural and
burlesque elements. Adam de la Halle is without doubt one of the most
fascinating writers of his time.
As the period we are concerned
with expires in rather difficult and depressing circumstances, the way
to future developments is thus already being shown in the towns of
Flanders and northern France. By the end of the fifteenth century, when
the horrors of the Hundred Years War are a thing of the past and when
stability and prosperity are returning once more, these same cultural
factors will help prepare the advent of the "Northern Renaissance".
