FROM FRENCH `FABLIAU MANUSCRIPTS' AND MS HARLEY 2253 TO THE DECAMERON AND THE CANTERBURY TALES.

`Miscellany' and `anthology'

Misuse of the label `miscellanies' has blocked scholars from looking carefully at what medieval readers saw when they picked up and read, or dipped into, many of the manuscripts so labelled.(1) The term `miscellany' usually implies a gathering of texts linked by no particular theme, arranged in no significant sequences, and segregated into no meaningful groups or patterns of items.(2) True, some manuscripts whose contents are indeed `miscellaneous' are clearly haphazard collections, copied by one or by various hands at scattered times(3) -- but others are no less clearly anthologies showing careful arrangement of their texts for an apparent overall purpose or intended use: we can infer principles by which their texts were chosen, and we can see patterns in which their texts are grouped and sequenced. This is particularly true of manuscripts whose contents were copied by one or two scribes within a limited period of time, and which give indications of serving specific purposes. My focus in the present paper is on a few such manuscripts: two English anthologies, one from the thirteenth, the other from the fourteenth century, and three anthologies of continental provenance/ produced mostly in the thirteenth but partly in the fourteenth century. The two English manuscripts are Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Digby 86 and London, British Library, MS Harley 2253, of which there are now facsimiles in print.(4) Of the continental ones, two are `fabliau manuscripts' now in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MSS fr. 837 and 19182, while the third is the famous Carmina burana manuscript (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4660 and Clm 4660a). For the present discussion, I have relied on facsimile editions of these three anthologies.(5)

Two English anthologies

As for the two English manuscripts, Digby 86 was copied by two scribes working together, probably in Worcestershire, about 1276-82; Harley 2253 was compiled and much of its contents copied by a single scribe working in or near Ludlow, in southern Shropshire, mostly about 1340.(6) Each has a large number of texts in French, Latin, and English, which range widely in genre, form, and thematics: amorous, religious, didactic, political, and satiric lyrics; fabliaux; legends of saints; prayers and meditative texts; romances; biblical materials; and doctrinal or hermeneutic work. Their secular and spiritual pieces are often juxtaposed, and pieces apparently meant for entertainment are set alongside others apparently didactic or devotional. I have argued elsewhere that the texts in MS Harley 2253 are not only deliberately variegated, but deliberately placed within the manuscript so as to highlight oppositions and encourage intertextual readings.(7) I have further suggested that similar intertextualizing arrangements are found among the lyrics of other manuscripts -- for instance, the Latin and English contrafacta of the Middle English `Cuckoo song' (`Sumer is icumen in') and its Latin Easter services counterpart, which are transcribed together and set to the same tune in London, British Library, MS Harley 978; and the pseudo-Ovidian `De vetula' juxtaposed to the Goliardic lyrics in London, British Library, MS Arundel 384.(8)

It was while trying to see why fabliaux were included in both Digby 86 and MS Harley 2253 that I began to observe how often their scribes had placed them next to very different texts, and came to believe such placement was meant to bring out oppositions and parallels between them: several fabliaux in MS Harley 2253, and at least one in Digby 86, are thus intertextualized with juxtaposed antifeminist/pro-feminist texts and materials.(9) This view -- that the scribes deliberately grouped, sequenced, and redacted texts in order to highlight their oppositions and parallels -- may first be illustrated by citation of three relevant instances. The first, in Digby 86, is that the scribe has grafted onto a scabrous fabliau (Les Quatre Sohais saint Martin) a long final `moralization', which comes from two poems elsewhere preserved as antifeminist texts.(10) The second instance, in MS Harley 2253, is that on fols 110-11 the scribe has placed in sequence (a) the fabliau Les Trois Dames; (b) a version of the same antifeminist verses found as conclusion to Les Quatre Sohais saint Martin; and (c) a pro-feminist poem. Les Trois Dames ends, in its MS Harley 2253 version, with the antifeminist remark that the `relic' which women most reverence is a penis; after this, the scribe sets a version of the fiercely antifeminist verses found also in Digby 86; and following these, he copies the pro-feminist poem, which blandly claims that women are all wonderful and quite perfect creatures.(11)

The third instance of how medieval scribes intertextualize fabliau and antifeminist materials is that several fabliaux copied into MS Harley 2253 offer misogynist satire by way of `moral conclusions'. In Le Chevalier qui fist parler les cons (fols [122.sup.v]-[124.sup.v]), a handsome but impecunious young knight, served by a squire rather like Sancho Panza, arrives at a castle whose master and all his people greet him heartily as a most welcome guest and load him with gifts. But when they ask him about himself and his squire, the squire unwisely jumps in and brags of an unusual talent which his master has been given: he can -- says the squire -- make any con speak the truth in answer to any question the knight may ask it.(12) Everybody agrees this is quite a talent -- but the lady of the castle narrows her eyes, and wagers heavily that he will not be able to make her con speak. He of course must accept the bet, and everyone waits to see what will happen. But first, she goes off to her bower and stuffs her con with cotton, thus completely silencing it, so that when she returns the knight is unable to get a word out edgeways, and it appears she will win the bet and humiliate him as a bragging impostor.

At this point, however, the knight is able to put into play another gift he has been given by the fairies: taking his ace from the hole, so to speak, he calls upon the lady's cul to explain why her con is refusing to speak. Of course M'sieu Cul tells the truth: `Because Milady has so stuffed M'sieu Con that he cannot speak a word,' he says. So the lady not only loses her bet but is put firmly in her proper wifely place, everyone congratulates the knight, and he goes on his way a happier and a richer man.